Collecting By Engraver

lithograving - Thanks for your valuable input and your suggested corrections to my posts. In the American business world, it is frequently said that "If you're not making mistakes, you're not trying hard enough."

Getting back to Alvaro Lucas, here are a couple more examples of his engraving work on stamps issued by Portugal on January 30, 1969 to commemorate the bicentenary of the birth of Portuguese explorer Pedro Álvares Cabral (1467-1520), Scott Nos. 1036 & 1037.

- nethryk

Portrait of Cabral


Cabral's coat of arms, designed by José Pedro Roque.

Lithograving,

it is perfectly OK if you do not care about the paper manufacturing aspects. But should you want to get interested do look at my

http://foro.filateliaargentina.com....f=139&t=5008

groetjes, Rein

Well I don't know if I would call stamp printing "soporific",
maybe Reins' paper theories are.
As I mentioned before they put me to sleep.

But nethryk, you are absolutely correct, this stuff belongs in a separate thread,
better yet in a separate section where only
the technical aspects of stamps are discussed.

I wonder if all the posts here regarding printing etc
which bother you so much could be split from this thread ?

BTW Rein, I have and do periodically peruse your posts
on the Argentinian forum.
I have it bookmarked.

nethryk, I know you only want this thread strictly limited to engraved
stamps but when I saw the 2 Cabral stamps it took me back yo the
times when I bought tthis set as a new issue.

I didn't collect Portugal at all but when I saw these stamps
in the new issue stock book in one of my trips to the stamp
stores in downtown Toronto I bought them.

I didn't buy them because of the engraved two but for the
lithographed 6.50e.

In 1969 engraved stamps were plentiful, many countries
issued them and most were still only one or two colours.

This sharp, colourful, superbly printed stamp just jumped out at me
because it was so different from those bland, boring,
ubiquitous line engraved stamps.
How times change.

Here are a couple more from West Germany.

First issued in 1955 for the 10th anniversary of
the expulsions of Germans at the end of World war II from Eastern Germany and other territories where most had lived for hundreds of years.

Designer : Hahn

Engraver : Egon Falz


Germany (West)
Scott 733 1955




It was reissued, different colour and date in 1965



It's interesting how stamps and history go hand in hand.

Just picked up from the library Exorcising Hitler by Frederick
Taylor which is partly about the aftermath of Germany's defeat.

HAITI 1920
Printed by American Bank Note Co.
Vignette engraved by William Adolph (1866-1947)



(Image taken from a post by rod222. Thanks Rod!)

Re the ongoing debate over the contents of this Collecting by Engraver thread.

Stamp engravers used to be known to have sometimes worked for a number of countries (Gandon, Heinz, Seitzinger ...) and so still do stamp printers. I remember nethryk showing a Rwanda stamp on another forum and asking: "I have not yet identified the name of the engraver, "R.T." Any help would be much appreciated!" Even if the printer did not print its name on the stamp (as usual with this particular one), the aspect of the product left no doubt and the engraver was easy to identify as Rudolf Toth. Of course, nethryk has to ignore similar technicalities to find time - and small wonder - for other things he so splendidly does for the benefit of the rest of us, rightly deserving our praise everywhere.

Oh, just take nethryk's perfect images of engraved stamps of French provenance! Or even those of Hungary, Russia and ex-Yugoslavia printed on copperplate printing presses so rarely seen in their technical splendour elsewhere! Thank you, nethryk.

I admit the thread has become a little unwieldy spread over its 124 pages as it is but thanks to AnthonyUK's index of most engravers included it is still manageable.

Not being a supplier of images (due to my age - "You can't teach an old dog ..." - and circumstances) I am all the more grateful to AnthonyUK, jorgesurcl, lithograving, nethryk, etc. etc. and I do feel guilty of trespassing on your hospitality trying to divert your attention to the way all this country-specific beauty was achieved.

However I am grateful for their asides on stamp production, stamp collecting and its history as well as occasional related topics to Galeoptix (Rein), lithograving, 65170 (Glenn Morgan – also see his topic "Austrian 1946 Cathedral Stamp Engraved by 10 Engravers" on this Forum - pity, no solution to the problem has been offered by the membership), and many others, just skipping what does not interest me.

florian, thank you for another one of your insightful
posts.

I have asked the powers to be here if it were possible
to have a section on SCF strictly for the technical
aspect of stamps.

Lets see what happens.

The "Collecting by Engraver" thread has possibly become a victim of its own success. There are a core group of readers who possess a lot of knowledge in many aspects of how a stamp is made and they are always keen to share it with a largely receptive audience. Due to this, some postings stray into the production stages which I consider quite understandable, for however great an engraved die might be, it is nothing unless it is used with ink on paper.

I consider the relatively few postings that have strayed beyond the main thrust of the thread to be fascinating and can very simply be passed over if of no personal interest, as others have said.

A separate thread called something like "stamp production techniques" would no doubt be welcomed by some readers, but we have a saying in England - "using a sledge hammer to crack a nut", which basically means to use disproportionate force to overcome a minor problem. That said, if the new thread encouraged active discussion on ALL production methods, i.e. not just intaglio, then I am all for it.

GLENN

lithograving - The Cabral fleet stamp issued by Portugal is indeed a beauty, but it would perhaps be better placed in one of the ships on stamps topical threads, as it is not engraved, as you pointed out.

Also, I think that your idea about creating a separate area in SCF for technical discussions about stamp production methods (maybe including all methods, as suggested by 65170) is an excellent one, and I would be overjoyed if all such posts in this thread were to be relocated there tout de suite!

florian - Thanks for your kind comments about the images I have posted here. As you have observed, we all still have plenty of things to discuss and learn about the world's stamp engravers.

jorgesurcl - I have put your beautiful Haiti "Commerce" allegorical stamp, engraved by William Adolph, on my want list. Thanks for showing it!

- nethryk

Louis-Norbert Hanniquet (1910-1980) was a French artist and engraver who studied under master engravers Antoine François Dezarrois and André Devambez. Hanniquet designed and engraved a number of stamps for several Francophone countries. Here are images of six examples of Louis-Norbert Hanniquet's stamp design and engraving skills.

- nethryk

Student and UNESCO emblem, airmail stamp issued by Gabon on November 4, 1966 to commemorate the organization's 20th anniversary, Scott No. C48.


Ashanti gold token, 17th-18th centuries, common design stamp issued by Dahomey (Benin) on November 4, 1967 to commemorate the 5th anniversary of the West African Monetary Union, Scott No. 244.


Statue of Henry IV of France (1553-1610) as a boy, by French sculptor Baron François Joseph Bosio (1769-1845), issued by Monaco on December 12, 1968, Scott No. 705.


Eiffel Tower and Moroni telephone exchange, airmail stamp issued by Comoro Islands on April 24, 1972 as one of a set of two telecommunications stamps, Scott No. C42.


Frenchman and Comoro Islander speaking to each other via telephone, airmail stamp issued by Comoro Islands on April 24, 1972 as one of a set of two telecommunications stamps, Scott No. C43.


Universal Postal Union Monument and globe, issued by Mauritania on May 28, 1973 for World UPU Day, Scott No. 302.

Hi Glenn

What I would like here is not just another thread
about printing methods or technical details etc but a separate
section just like there is now for Cinderellas, Kiloware,
Contests and Quizes, Checks,Stocks and Bonds etc.

Every time there is an excellent thread about printing as for
example one by member James explaining photogravure, after
a short time and no further posts it gets lost in the shuffle.

Especially here in this Collecting by Engraver thread there is
so much technical info; a lot from florian and from you yourself
but I have difficulty finding any of it when I want to refer back to something.

I realize that a separate section just for technical stuff
might not get much traffic since many collectors find it boring
but who knows maybe some members will go there once and get hooked.

nethryk - I'm glad you liked the info about Haitian stamp.

I like the idea of having a special section to post information on technical aspects : printing systems, perforation (line, comb, harrow, etc), papers, fluorescence and phosphorescence, etc.
I think it would be very useful.

All of us have our opinions, sentiments, predilections which we may partly share.

For me stamps can be evocative of the world's beauties as well as witness to its joys and sorrows that I myself, my kith and kin, my ancestors ... mankind have experienced having left their mark on humble me in the end.

My field of interest is line-engraved stamps where I pick and choose never aiming at completeness of any sort but collecting just for enjoyment knowing my limits. Multi sunt vocati, pauci electi - a phrase once heard that has stuck in my mind. Many are called, but few are chosen. And the same goes for individual works of stamp creators (designers / engravers) as far as my choices are concerned.

Technologically speaking, the stamps of my choice fall into different categories depending on the type of press used in their production (and even on their printers' expertise). See the differences among line-engraved stamps produced, say, in Australia, Austria, Britain, Canada, Czech Republic, Denmark, France, Norway, Spain, Sweden, U.S.A. to name but a few and their various products each with assets of their own to their producer.

In my opinion, completely divorcing these notions from the actual images of the engraved beauties in this thread could be detrimental to both of the proposed separate threads.

Computer-illiterate as I actually am, I cannot offer any advice in this respect. Cross-referencing for cumbersome details perhaps? Or another index / other indices attached I would be willing to help with?

Florian, you make a lot of good points in your last
post.

I agree and I said it before that by totally separating
all technical details about engraving in a thread about
engravers, we might throw out the baby with the bath water.

But for many other reasons I really believe a separate
section would be for the best and site and all forum members
would benefit from having more discussions re printing etc.

I really don't want to compare this site with others
and I do like it here and appreciate all the expense
and effort put into it by the owner(s).

But just look at a thread that Rein (Galeoptix)
started a few days ago on an Austrian German speaking
forum called briefmarken-forum.

He takes a nondescript Austrian post WWII definitive issue and analyzes
the different printings, showing differences between typography (letterpress) and offset printings.

I probably first looked at these stamps 60 years ago and never
really paid any attention to them at all.

Now I find out that there are actually two different
typography printings for some of these stamps :
metal plates and rubber plates.

I understand quite a bit of what is written in spite
of my poor grasp of German but I really wish we could
have these type of discussions right here on SCF.

We are so lucky nowadays with the advent of the
internet.

No more just going through our collections by
ourselves, trying to gather bits of information
from whatever source available.

Now we can communicate and relate with collectors all
over the world and tons of information is at our
finger tips.

There is nothing boring about stamp collecting in 2014.

Here is a link to the above mentioned thread by Rein

http://www.briefmarken-forum.com/t5...h-etwas-mehr