Collecting By Engraver

I think the Gandon version is much more detailed and true
to the original painting.

Cheffer's Lucien looks like he is scowling or even sad whereas Gandon portrays him like the confident prince he probably was.
Cheffer's nose doesn't have the slight curve of the nose,
a weak chin, downward curve of the mouth and even the hair looks all wrong.
It is just very crude compared to Gandon's Lucien Grimaldi

Obviously the colour makes it appear closer to the
painting but as you can see below even in black Gandon's is
a much more realistic engraving.

A few pages back, Lithograving showed Henry Cheffer's Marianne stamp, which was engraved by Durrens as Cheffer had been dead for ten years when it was chosen as the new Marianne.

It is a lovely stamp and shows how Cheffer was a fine artist as well as being an engraver of other people's art.

It was released in 1967 as a 25c Prussian Blue and a 30c Purple then in January 1969 it was re-released as a 30c Emerald and a 40c Cerise.

The 40c stamp was later used to celebrate the new stamp printing works at Perigueux with an added label engraved by Jumelet.

What puzzles me is that in July 1969 they also released a typo version of the 30c Emerald. It truly is an inferior stamp and if anyone asks you why you like engraved stamps, you would only need to show the two of these to make your point.





But why did they do this. Was the die for the 30c damaged in some way? If they needed more stamps in a hurry, I can't see how it would be quicker to go back to the beginning and do the whole thing over in a different format. I can only guess that perhaps the accountants had a say in it and there was a need to trim the budget.

The typo version was later released with phosphor bands so perhaps that has a bearing on the reason. Does anyone know?

We've been comparing engravers a bit lately so when I received this 1962 set from Monaco, I thought it was worth showing. I don't remember seeing it before but it is certainly possible that it has been shown. My apologies if so.

The set depicts the protection of birds that are useful to agriculture and features most of our favourite engravers. All designs were drawn by Pierrette Lambert and they are catalogued as SG 730-739 and Scott 511-520


Yellow Wagtails engraved by Rene Cottet


European Robins engraved by Charles Mazelin


Goldfinches engraved by Georges Betemps


Blackcaps engraved by Charles Mazelin


Great Spotted Woodpeckers engraved by Pierre Munier

Nightingale engraved by Claude Durrens


Barn Owls engraved by Pierre Gandon


Common Starlings engraved by Jules Piel


Red Crossbills engraved by Pierre Bequet


White Storks engraved by Rene Cottet

jjarmstrong47, absolutely beautiful engravings. The birds stamps are a real beauty and the work done is fantastic.

jjarmstrong47, thanks for showing those Monaco birds.
I have to admit that I'm more interested in the colour combinations
than the engravers, therefore I shall take this over to the
Stamp Production Process Forum.

I think we all agree that it is great that China have begun engraving stamps again. Martin Morck spent three years teaching young engravers there and the results are starting to show. I'm awaiting two of the owl sets which I think are superb.

I admit I'm not as enthusiastic about this set of Ancient thinkers from 2000 (SG 4540-5, Scott 3059-64) but it was early days and the engraving is really only used to highlight the photo of the drawings. As lithograving says, any engraving on a stamp improves it.

I use the Chinese post office web site a lot but for this set they only listed the designer, Yuan Xikun but they have a place where you ask questions, so I did.

Customer Questions & Answers
Q: who were the engravers for these stamps, please? (11/15/2016) - A: Total 5 persons. Jiang Weijie, Hu Zhenyuan, Li Qingfa, Yan Bingwu and Hao Ou. Thanks. (11/26/2016)

So five engravers worked on the set, but who did what? Some of these are experienced engravers who have been working on stamps for years.

Adrian has mentioned somewhere that Chinese engravers hide their initials somewhere in the design and this can tell you which ones worked on which stamp. Well, here they are but I can't see them. Can anyone find any initials on these?


Confucius


Mencius


Lao Zi


Zhuang Zi


Mo Zi


Xun Zi

Zi must have been a good Christian name for a thinker.

Most Vatican stamps are not that expensive but when a seller on Hipstamp had a half-price sale on the Vatican just before Christmas, it was an offer too good to refuse. My "indulgences" arrived today and I was not disappointed.

Here is a small sample. This set is from 1958, the birth bicentenary of Antonio Canova and features sculptures held in the Vatican by him. All stamps were designed by Casimira Dabrowska.


Pope Clement XIII, SG 275, Scott 243, engraved by Alceo Quieti
As I expected, the engraving by Alceo Quieti is superb and the detail in the Pope's gown is stunning.


Pope Clement XIV. SG 276, Scott 244 engraved by Mazzini Canfarini


Pope Pius VI. SG 277, Scott 245 engraved by Mario Colombati


Pope Pius VII. SG 278, Scott 246, engraved by Vincenzo Mastrangelo. As far as I can find, this seems to be the only stamp he engraved. All I have found on this engraver is his name.

Beautiful! Thanks for showing these.
As for your previous question on Chinese engravers and their hidden initials (sorry, I can be a bit slow at times), they were not Chinese engravers but Taiwanese engravers, who hid their initials in those owl stamps issued some years ago. So you may well need to ask the Chinese Post some follow-up questions!
:-)
Adrian

Thanks Adrian. I ordered two of the owl sets so I should have some fun when they arrive. Glad you liked the Vatican stamps. Here are some more by Quieti, one of my favourite engravers.

Air: Scenes from the Last Judgement by Michelangelo. Designed and engraved by Alceo Quieti. Engraved on a litho background. SG 651-3, Scott C60-62

Help! Saint Cyril's alphabet has got me beat!

I'm sorting out the 1921-4 set from Bulgaria for which Gibbons gives four designers without any details of who did what. The designers were Stefan Badjov, Rayko Aleksiev, Anton Mitov and G. Estatiev. The dies were engraved and the stamps printed by Bradbury Wilkinson so again, there are no engravers listed.

Fortunately, some of the designers have signed them, such as these two with PA in the corner, which in Cyrillic is the equivalent of RA in English. This shows me that Rayko Aleksiev was the artist.


Woman harvesting SG 240, Scott 167


Shipka Pass Monastery SG 237, Scott 164

The 3l value is a redrawn version of the 1911 stamp and has the same signature. Gibbons says that only two designers worked on the 1911 set, cutting it down to Anton Mitov and G Estatiev (whose details have eluded me).

King Asen Tower SG 241, Scott 168

Both the 1911 and this stamp have initials, one of which looks like the Cyrillic G to me so I am guessing it might be the elusive G. Estatiev but the other initial is a mystery to me. Could somebody please tell me what these letters would be if in English.

The same signature appears on the 5l value except this time, one of the letters is definitely a "G". I still can't work out what the other one is though.


Rila Monastery SG 242, Scott 169

Absolutely stunning stamps, jjarmstrong47.

May I know how do you store them, like engraver wise or simple country wise?

How to store is something we have all tried with different ways. I experimented with a four tier system with an album which held stamps where the engravers were known, then one where the designer was known, a third where only the printer was known and finally one where only the country was known.

I found this good in some ways but finally decided it was unsatisfactory because I was breaking up too many sets and being able to look at an entire set, particularly where different engravers were involved was important to me.

Now I am in the process of returning to storing by country but my plan is to print tabs that sit beside each stamp with the details.

Graphis sent me some stamps recently and there are some beauties amongst them. In deference to Graphis' Polish connections, I'll show a few of the Polish ones here.


Stamp Day 1967: Wilanow Palace (after W. Kasprzycki). SG 1773, Scott 1531. Designed by Stefan Malecki and engraved by Jerzy Miller. When you think of countries with great engravers, Poland might not be the first that comes to mind but stamps like this show they were the equal of anybody.


Stamp Day, 1963: A Love Letter (after W. Czachorski). SG 1419, Scott 1174 Designed by Czeslaw Kaczmarczyk and engraved by Edward Konecki.


1965 20th anniversary of liberation of Warsaw. SG 1548, Scott 1298. Designed by Tadeusz Michaluk and engraved by Edward Konecki. My copy of this stamp was so heavily postmarked, I hadn't realised what fine engraving it is.

I hope you enjoy seeing these as much as I enjoyed receiving them.