Collecting By Engraver

France Scott B162 1943

Engraver: Achille Ouvré

François Clouet, 16th Century painter.
The stamp is based on his self-portrait.

France Scott B166 1943

Designer & Engraver : Achille Ouvré

French King Henri IV
Surtax was for national relief.

France Scott B194 July 1945

Designer & Engraver : Achille Ouvré

Crusade for clean air.
Surtaxe was for child welfare.



Notice the country name is back to RF (République française)
compared to France or Postes Françaises under
the Vichy government.

Algeria issue of 1936-41 engraver Albert Decaris



Scott83



Belgium Congo issue of 1910-15
Engraver ???...style very reminiscent of Decaris...but is issued at least 20 yrs before he engraved his first stamp in 1935.

Scott 47

Honduras Bográn Issue 1891

Bográn was president of Honduras from 1883 to 1891 and had a hand in selecting the design of the stamp showing his likeness. Like a majority of political leaders in Honduras he was a member of the small and rich ruling class that dabbled in militarism. As the song goes, he had elliptical connections to pass his money around. Two of his cousins used these connections to become presidents themselves. All three had a hand in arranging things so the American banana companies avoided paying American corporate income taxes because of their offshore location. At least some things never change.

Since none of the Bográn stamps have the marginal engravings of the Hamilton Banknote Company it seems doubtful that the stamps were printed in New York City. There is evidence that this issue was printed instead by Macdonald Engraving of New Jersey. Many of the Bográn issue were printed on a type of paper unknown until 1899.


Scott 51

lithograving..this one is for your Achille Ouvré file.
Design:Robert Quesnel
Engraving:Achille Ouvré


French Marocco -1939 -town of Sefrou.

Scott 151

Lovely stamps graphis, very sharp scans.
Also the colours look very vibrant.

What is the make of your scanner?

lithograving...thanks for your comments.
My scanner is an Epson Perfection V5000 Photo....have been using Epson scanners for about 15 yrs...comes with great software.
Stamps are scanned at 800 dpi...and edited with Paintshop Pro...i adjust the color with their "fade correction" function....works great even on black and white photos.
Finally I use Photobucket to upload photos to SCF.

BTW...nothing wrong with your scanned images...they always look great.

lithograving - In Picasa 3 one may fine tune an image using the "Highlights" and "Shadows" tools to render the finished image reasonably close to the appearance of the actual stamp as revealed in natural light or with a full-spectrum desk lamp.

- nethryk

PS I just posted an image of another stamp engraved by Achille Ouvré in the "Drama and Theatre" thread.

@nethryk

I used Picasa for a few years but basically
just for the straightening tool.
But I always noticed a slight loss of sharpness after
the stamps were straightened.
Also I hated when after opening Picasa it went through every
pic on my hard drive, over and over again.

Now I use Fast Stone Image Viewer for straightening.
It's a bit slower to use but there is no blurring
like with Picasa.

Here is your Jean Racine Scott 629 from the "Drama and Theatre" thread on the left beside mine on the right.
Colour wise, neither looks like the actual stamp though yours
might be slightly more true.

France Scott 629 1948

Designer : André Spitz

Engraver: Achille Ouvré




Scott calls the colour sepia, Yvert Tellier claims it's brun violacé (Purplish brown) and Michel says it is
brownish black.
What I see on my scan is mostly black, maybe a smidgen of purple.


I see graphis uses the Epson Perfection V5000 Photo and I believe
you have also stated in the past that you use the same
Epson model.
I have the older version the Epson Perfection 4490 Photo,
so perhaps the newer V5000 is more colour sensitive.

lithograving..the Epson V5000 has an LED light source...and your model uses a White cold cathode fluorescent lamp...would that make a difference?....as I mentioned earlier..your scans look great....remember that an image larger than the original in most cases won't look
like the original article. IMO

Yes graphis, the LED might make a difference.
There must have been some improvements between the older
4499 and newer V500.

The newest Epson, the V850 Pro Photo Scanner
is only $1,188, that's in Canadian dollars.
I guess in the States it sells for a couple of hundred bucks.

Here is another stamp with a slightly ironic twist. This was issued by Czechoslovakia in 1957 to honour Karel Klic, designed by Jaroslav Pos and engraved by Bohdan Roule.



I think it is a fine portrait, beautifully engraved. The irony comes from the fact that Karel Klic is credited with inventing the photogravure process of printing, which Czechoslovakia used for many of their stamps but they chose to engrave this one.

As part of the campaign by the Swiss Post to promote their 1946 Pestalozzi stamp shown before, Karl Bickel engraved yet another portrait of the man, which was produced in a limited edition of 100 copies.



This portrait resembles the original 1927 Pestalozzi stamp much more than the 1946 version.

AKPhilately, that Pestalozzi engraving is a superb piece
of work.
Amazing what a few ( well more than a few) lines can create,
if you have the talent of course.

It reinforces again that Karl Bickel was a master engraver in the
same league as Slania, Gandon,Toth etc but in my opinion he never
seems to get the credit he deserves.