Collecting By Engraver

Here are images of the six stamps in a set featuring "sculpted" portraits of notable Portuguese sculptors, engraved by Portuguese engraver Alvaro Lucas (1953- ), and issued by Portugal on July 7, 1971, Scott Nos. 1097-1102.

- nethryk

Francisco Franco (1885-1955)


Antonio Teixeira Lopes (1866-1942)


Antonio Augusto da Costa Mota (Uncle, 1862-1930)


Rui Roque Gameiro (1906-1935)


José Simões de Almeida (Nephew, 1880-1950)


Francisco "dos" Santos (1878-1930)

Great engravings, great style, great colours. Thank you, nethryk.

We haven't had too many examples of German engravers so far.

Most post WWII German stamps were either offset/litho
or photogravure, whether from the Federal Republic (West Germany)
the DDR or German Democratic Republic (EastGermany) or
West Berlin (Allied Occupied until 1990 but basically part of
West Germany)

The West German Bundesdruckerei in Berlin (Federal Printer)
did print some engraved stamps over the years.
Where they as appealing as the engraved beauties of Austria or
Czechoslovakia or Sweden or France?
Not in my opinion.
Does that mean the German engravers were inferior to the ones
of other printing concerns?
I don't think so but lets face it they had no Slania.
Were their printing presses not up to scratch?
Again I don't think so since many of the best printing presses
whether for steel engraving or offset/litho or photogravure
were or still are manufactured in Germany.

The West German engraved stamps were just different.
Some have already been shown here previously for example this Rubens anniversary issue from 1977

Scott 1250



Engraver : Egon Falz (check out some more of his work on page 3)
https://goscf.com/t/9106&whichpage=3#119535


Falz also engraved this 1958 issue for 1000 years of the Trier
market. Designed by H. Stelzer

Scott 786



And this one for the 80th Catholic Day 1964
Designer : W. Neufeld

Scott 896





Notice the blue grey ink bleeding into the suns rays on the right.
Was it printed by a Giori or giori type of Press?

Florian would you have any info on this?

Hi nethryk,

I'm curious, is 1953 the correct birth date ?
Ok that would make him 18 when he engraved these which is excellent
for one so young.

But if he is the same A. Lucas who engraved these 1968
Portuguese stamps below then being only 15 he was truly
an amazing early talent.

Scott 1017 - 1018

Litho: welcome back. You were missed. A bolo punch to lead off too. I hope we get to see you and Nethryk tag-teaming again.

Heh cynical how are you?

I see on another thread you're still reminiscing
about the old days when you a were a young buck in the army
in Europe.

You must have had a good time over there with all the
Fräulein & mademoiselles.

MY wife always says "You live in the past" and I tell
her "mind your own business "Yes dear".

lithograving - Welcome back! Good catch on the "child prodigy" Alvaro Lucas. Rechecking my notes, I find that I don't actually have Lucas's birth year (and so I am correcting my previous post). According to Gene Hessler (in The International Engraver's Line), on August 24, 1953 Lucas applied for employment at American Bank Note Company, which in my reading I somehow mistook for his birth date. Hessler adds that Lucas graduated from the school of Bela Artes in Lisbon, and that Lucas had 14 years of employment at the Bank of Portugal, but Hessler doesn't provide his beginning and ending dates. - nethryk

nethryk, that's why I had to come back.

Someone has to keep you on your toes.

Lithograving,

the bicoloured German stamps had been printed in recess using the Giori process! The Bundesdruckerei stopped printing in recess a few years ago. They had either the Giori-type or the combined offset-litho plus recess...
The Giori recess-press was destroyed after printing the last of the Famous German Ladies „Marie Juchacz" (issued 16.01.2003). A little bit earlier the „Quantz-Maschine" was destroyed after printing the „Museumsinsel Berlin" issued 08.08.2002, combining recess and offset-litho.

But the Giori process was used for the Portuguese Casa da Moeda stamps as well!

groetjes, Rein

Hello Rein

Thanks for the info re Giori. So the list goes on as to which
country/printers used this method.

The first time I even heard of the term Giori was in the early sixties
when the press was used by the BEP who I believe first used it in 1957
for the 3c Whooping Crane on the 3-color "Giori" press

Since then I've found many more printers who used this single run
one plate multicolour process.


It's a pity we don't have separate section here specifically
for the technical aspects of stamp printing

Rein, With your vast knowledge and of course florian and GLENN MORGAN
it would be ideal to have all this information in one place.
Instead now it's spread out all over this and other forums..

How many stamp forums are you on?
And how many languages are you literate in?

Besides SCF, I've seen you post on the Australian one
plus an Argentinian,Austrian and a German stamp forum.

One thing that puzzles me is why didn't the Bundesdruckerei
use the Giori press to print truly multicolour totally
engraved stamps such as the ones printed by the Atelier du Timbre, Paris
or Atelier du Timbre, Malines Belgium or the Swedish State Printer
or the Fabrica Nacional de Moneda y Timbre, Spain

The German printer must have been capable of correct colour separation, so why did they produce something like this below.
Germany(West)
Scott 928 1965

Designer : H. Kern

Engraver : Egon Falz



3 colour engraving on grey toned paper. Why would they even
bother with engraving the grey lettering and red numeral.
What a waste of engraving, offset would have served just as well.

Here is another one.

Germany (West)
Scott 917 1965

Designer : R. Heinsdorff

Engraver : Hans Joachim Fuchs ( years active engraving 1955 - 1991)

Two colour engraving on grey toned paper.

For some reason there is no engraver listed for this
West German commemorative.
Perhaps the engraving took so little skill that
an apprentice produced it and therefore was not given credit?

Designer : E. Ege

Scott 880 1964



Combination Printing : 2 colour engraving, 1 colour offset (pink background)

"Rein, With your vast knowledge and of course florian and GLENN MORGAN
it would be ideal to have all this information in one place.
Instead now it's spread out all over this and other forums..

How many stamp forums are you on?
And how many languages are you literate in?

Besides SCF, I've seen you post on the Australian one
plus an Argentinian,Austrian and a German stamp forum."


English and Polish is no problem, German is getting better although they steadily complain about me stirring up things and introducing new aspects where they would prefer to stick to the well-known information provided by Michel only....

Yes, I am on 6 German-speaking Forums now, on Stampboards, Foro Filatelia Argentina [which is my main forum] and the Polish PZF Forum.

pozdrawiam, Rein

Rein I have followed many of your posts on different forums
regarding print techniques but I have to say that your
theories about Wire structures in stamp paper!
leave me cold and put me to sleep. ZZZZZZZZZZZ



I have no idea what you are trying to show in
the numerous examples such as the one above.

lithograving & Galeoptix - Perhaps these soporific posts about postage stamp printing methods would be better continued in a new and different thread somewhere else on SCF? I believe this thread is intended to be about engravers, not arcane facts about paper and presses. - nethryk