Collecting By Engraver

Florian - I am sure that Rein knows more than me on the question posed regarding S.T.I.F. (more usually shown as STIF), but I know that it was a brand name for printing presses. Any idea what the acronym stands for? Presumably "Societe T.... I.... F...."?

I am aware of Belgium, France and Finland using this brand of press for printing postage stamps.

Belgium - a STIF is depicted in an "Imprimerie du Timbre" booklet from 1962, recording its use for taille-douce (intaglio) work at that time.

France - At least one dummy stamp is known from France depicting Lafayette. Two colours are shown below, albeit very poor quality, as I do not own the items.





I understand that a third colour exists, all three coming from the press known as TD6 located within ITVF and all date from 1963 in sheets of 50.

Finland - Info not to hand

It is apparent that the presses from all three countries date from the early 1960s, so perhaps STIF was a short-term supplier of stamp presses?

Further information would be welcomed by me, especially from other countries not recorded above.

GLENN MORGAN

Glenn,

there is practically NO info on STIF : Societé T... Impriméries Fiduciaires !?

I did send you sometime ago what I had found, didn't I...

groetjes, Rein

P.S.

I can post here what I have plus some of the stamps involved!













What did happen to the red print??? :)

Albert Decaris made two engravings for the Jean Cocteau stamp. One for the direct recess and one for the indirect recess on the TD6 = the taille douce 6 colours - rotary press.



From "Le Patrimoine du Timbre-Poste Français".

groetjes, Rein

Here are a few more Czechoslovakian portraiture stamps engraved by Jindra Schmidt.

Designers : Max Švabinský and Vladimír Silovský who was actually a student of Svabinsky.

Scott 997 1960



Scott 1000 1960




Scott 1001 1960




Issued for the day of the Czechoslovakian Postage Stamp and the
Birth centenary of Alfons Mucha who designed the first Czechoslovakian
stamp

Scott 1019



So going by the date and comparing the info on Glenn Morgan's excellent site these stamps were printed by the
WIFAG I (Winkler Fallert & Co.,AG) press which was capable of printing one colour intaglio I and one colour photogravure P.
Obviously in these examples only the intaglio unit was used.

Glenn, Florian please correct me if I'm in error here.

Visit Glenn Morgan's site but be warned you will spend many hours there reading his Dummy Stamps Newsletters
http://www.stampprinters.info/dummystamps.htm

STIF stands for:

http://www.cgb.fr/essai-de-papier-s..._0403,a.html

STIF : Société Technique d'Impressions Fiduciaires






Linked with Imprimerie Desfosses:

http://corporama.com/fr/societe/imp...es/572060192

groetjes, Rein

On STIF (Société Technique d'Impressions Fiduciaires)

This was a French Security printing company.
Between October 27-29 October 1952 Gualtiero Giori held a Conference in Lausanne; in this gathering were French, Italian and German printers, printing machine designers and manufactures. The "de l'organisation Giori" was born with agreements between many of the printing press manufacturers. J.Mermet President of STIF, R. Des Lyons, Secretary general of STIF; S. Baune (President, Société des Procédés Serge Beaune) and many others who were present at the meeting, decided to cooperate. Gualtiero Giori was not an ordinary businessman; he was a man with foresight.

Gualtiero Giori bought many patenets from STIF and Serge Beaune. There are many patents belonging to STIF and Serge Beaune.

http://cnum.cnam.fr/ILL/BSPI.145.html
http://www.google.com/patents/US4516496


STIF being the manufacturer of printing machines, naturally prepared montages for presentation purposes.

The inking and wiping mechanisms were constantly being improved for their poly crome machines and Giori saw the future in collaboration and thus excelled in the field of security printing by pooling the knowledge, rather like Bill Gates buying MS DOS and improving it to become a giant. Mr. Serge Beaune was a great inventor, but was not a good businessman.

This Czechoslovakian set was issued for PRAGA 1962.
The are very strikingly modern stylistic designs by Josef Liesler.


Engravers : Jindra Schmidt, Jiri Svengsbir, Jan Mracek, Josef Hercik and Ladislav Jirka who engraved the Souvenir sheet.

Printing was done by multicolour (five colours ?) flat bed Waite & Saville presses, one colour at a time (right Florian?)

Scott 1128 - 1133 1962

The PRAGA 1962 Souvenir Sheet

Scott 1134

This one with similar design as the ones above was
issued for FIP Day.Fédération Internationale de Philatélie

Czechoslovakia
Scott 1133

Designer : Josef Liesler.

Engraver : Bedrich Housa

65170 - Glenn, thank you very much for the names of the countries using S.T.I.F. presses for printing stamps.

I am very happy to learn what brand press my Belgium multicolour line-engraved stamps were printed on.

Galeoptix - Rein, thank you for tracking down the name of the company producing S.T.I.F. presses. I was unable to cope with the problem.

As for the Jean Cocteau stamp, it had to be printed on a TD-6 press because the design as approved, even if in two colours only, could not have been engraved on a single steel plate used with a TD-3.

The TD-6 requires two plates to be engraved, the first to be printed in offset (impression taille-douce report, therefore less sharp in detail) in up to three colours, the second to be printed as the true intaglio (impression taille-douce, with details standing out sharp) in up to three colours as well.

The result obtained in this way can best be studied on the 1966 Pour le Musee Postal souvenir sheet, showing the printing stages of the de la Tour stamp issued by France in the same year.

lithograving - Using a watchmaker's lens I examined my U.S. Scott 1203 comparing it with my Scott 1207 (Breezing Up) and Scott 1250 (Shakespeare) by the same engraver and found that C.A. Brooks employed the pointillist method to engrave certain sections of the stamps, so now I do not have any doubts about the way the stamp was produced. What had led me into error had been the extreme closeness of the points, e.g. in the area of Hammarskjold's mouth.

Another case I studied was my Scott 1731 (poet Carl Sandburg) engraved by Kenneth Kipperman. Its fine image was shown by nethryk on p. 55 of this thread. Any comments on the engraving, anyone?

Thank you for the fine images of the PRAGA 1962 set. Yes, the miniature sheet was printed in five colours and the rest of the set in four colours from flat plates on diestamp print presses, only I am not sure at the moment which make (Waite & Saville or Heim or possibly both for different values) they were.

canadian - Thank you very much for your detailed information on S.T.I.F. helping me to understand things that are difficult to come by.

Delighted with the new information from everyone that expands our knowledge on STIF and for the kind mention of my newsletters.

I can add to the Bank of Finland Security Printing House's installation - "At the beginning of the 1960s the process of modernising capacity was continued by purchasing new machines to print forms, a steel press for bonds, cheques and other securities and finally, in the middle of the decade, French Stif presses for the production of banknotes and postage stamps." This info comes from "Bank of Finland Security Printing House, 1885-1985". The press is illustrated here, from that book.



The booklet previously mentioned for Belgium "L'Imprimerie du Timbre" by the "Direction Technique des Postes - Belgique" (published 1962) captioned the image below (in French) "<<Stiff>> press for intaglio printing."



Hope this is of interest.

GLENN MORGAN

By direct and indirect does one mean recess engraving and the other photogravure ?

The second image shows the early sixties Belgian Stiff press for intaglio printing.

So would this be also a combination press printing both recess engraving and photogravure?

Most multicolour Belgian stamps from the early sixties on were either
multicolour photogravure or combination recess and photo but
not totally recess engraved multicolour.

I want to make sure I have this straight. So Stif printing presses are not a specific make of press but modified by and for
each printing concern but based on the Giori principle in combination with photogravure and/or lithography.