Collecting By Engraver

FRANCE Scott B143 1942

Designer & Engraver : Antonin Delzers

Arms of Le Havre

Surtax was for national relief.

FRANCE Scott 452 1942

Engraver : Antonin Delzers


Designer : Paul-Pierre Lemagny

1ooth Birth Anniversary of Jules Massenet

FRANCE Scott B167 1943

Engraver : Gabriel-Antoine Barlangue

Designer : Antonin Delzers

Costume of Piccardy
Surtax was for national relief.

Pierre Gandon was a superb engraver but I have to admit that this stamp does little for me.


Lekine Cliffs. New Caledonia 1967 SG 424 Scott 352

My reason for posting this is because Gibbons gives the designer as Robin (which is on the stamp). Unfortunately, after searching page after page of irrelevant things I still have no idea who the mysterious Robin was, nor have I found any other stamps designed by him. This makes me think he was an artist and Gandon used his painting to model the stamp.

This would lead me to believe this could have been the French landscape painter Georges Charles Robin (as distinct from Georges Robin who was more famous as a sculptor it seems and died young in 1928).

This stamp has a similar feel to Robin's landscapes, I think, though that could just be wishful thinking. Any ideas?

lithograving - Great French stamps and great scans. Cheers!

There is a new book out about the stamp engraving work of Martin Morck. The link is http://www.nordfrim.com/book-by-mor...n-nordstroem GLENN

Practically all stamps of CS are on uncoated paper!

The CS catalogues do not give any information, apart from stating OZ [or OBA optical brightening agents] for some and FL [or yellow fluorescence as for German stamps] since 1977./1978....

From today I'll be reproducing my article on Karl Bickel Sr on my blog, in fortnightly instalments. It first appeared in Gibbons Stamp Monthly of March and April 2016. If you're interested, this is the link:

http://stampengravers.blogspot.co.u...86-1982.html

Because Bickel hasn't featured too much yet here I thought I'd better make up for that and start showing his engravings.

First up is Karl Bickel's first stamp engraving, for the Pro Juventute series of 1927. The portrait is that of the pedagogue Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi.



I know of only four colour proofs produced. There could of course be more but you only see these four colours coming up in auctions over and over again, so I'm fairly certain these are the only ones. The colour proofs were made with the printing plate, as can be seen from the marginal block of four black stamps.

Imagine what engravers like Bickel, or in Australia, Frank Manley, could have done if they had the modern printing presses. Those proofs are splendid.

I was browsing through some exchange sheets today and found an interesting stamp from Vatican City. Up until now I had no stamps either engraved or designed by Mario Ramossotto and he did both on this. As far as I know, he only produced a handful of stamps but then, the competition was pretty fierce in Italy from some splendid stamp engravers (and probably still is).


Birthplace of St Theresa. Vatican City 1973 SG 594 Scott 534

I know I'm already interrupting my hardly started series on Bickel but today is Bedrich Housa's 90th birthday so we really have got to look at his work! Here are two which I like very much:

Happy 90th birthday to Bedøich Housa, doyen of the Czech master engravers of postage stamps!

His latest works include the following issues:

Tradition of Czech Stamp Production (Jan. 20, 2010), rotary recess print combined with photogravure
http://www.wnsstamps.post/stamps/20...CZ002.10.jpg

Duke Oldøich meets a peasant girl Božena, his wife to be, painting by František Ženíšek (to be seen at the bottom of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old%C...e_of_Bohemia ), s/s issued on April 11, 2009, recess print from flat plate combined with offset
http://www.filaso.cz/katalog-znamky...amkach-arsik
detail of the stamp:
http://www.wnsstamps.post/stamps/20...CZ033.09.jpg

My favourite is his 1969 Equus liber et incompositus by Hendrik Goltzius stamp as it appears on http://stampengravers.blogspot.cz/2...housa-b.html published by AKPhilately (the 3rd stamp shown).

And I love his 1967 large panorama of Prague ( http://www.cpslib.org/aip/1967-1586.htm ).

Here is Bedrich at 90; thanks to his daughter for the photograph. he is alert as ever.

Let me join here in wishing Bedøich Housa a very
Happy 90th Birthday

He is truly one of the greats in the Art of stamp engraving.
Amazing that he was still engraving when he was 84.

Here are a couple that show his unique style.

Scott 1332 1965

Bratislava University 1465-1965




One of my Housa favourites.

Scott 1445 1967

Bratislava, Slovakia

@canadian, thanks for that pic of the birthday boy.

Looking forward to seeing more of your posts which
really add a human touch to our hobby.
Usually we only get a name that comes with the stamp
and nothing else.
Sometimes we don't even have the name of whoever
engraved a particular stamp.

I believe they deserve recognition for creating these
works of Art and you are certainly doing your part
by way of staying in contact with them and their
families.

Here is the first stamp engraved by Bedrich Housa

Scott 394 1949

700 years of mining in Bohemia.



The town of Kutna Hora (Kuttenberg) has a very
interesting history.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kutn%C3%A1_Hora