Collecting By Engraver

jjarmstrong47...thanks for posting those stamp images and the fascinating stories behind them...looking forward to more stories behind the stamp.

I don't know or care about Kenneth Kipperman's personal
problems but became interested in this stamp when I first read
that an engraver contrary to BEP rules included
a six pointed (Star of David) on this US Bernard Revel stamp.
http://www.nytimes.com/1987/08/16/u...e-stamp.html

I think that they got a bit paranoid after that and found things that were probably not there. For instance, they thought that they could see Slania's signature in the grass of the WW1 stamp.



Now, I know Slania was fond of adding little messages on his stamps and he also liked all his stamps to be identified as his own but I think you need a pretty good imagination in this case. Just about every squiggle of grass can be seen as a letter of some sort if you try hard enough and yes, you can (sort of) see his name there if you are keen enough but I'm sorry, I'm not convinced in this case. Here are some squiggles that could be interpreted as his signature, if you are keen enough.



There are probably others as well. It would be an interesting exercise to see how many of us could find our names in the grass.

They also identified the stamp collecting set by Thomas Hipschen as being signed. I don't have that set to hand so I can't comment on those. Perhaps somebody else can find the signatures.

I often look for better stamps than the one I have posted in the database and one stamp I have been looking out for is the Royal visit stamp for New Zealand issued in 1953. The image of the young Queen Elizabeth II on this stamp is one of the best ever produced in my opinion. Until today, I only had a very poor stamp but now that has changed I can show it here with pride, though I'm sure it has been here before. The artist was Leonard Cornwall Mitchell and the stamp was produced by Waterlow but to me, the engraver is still a mystery.

Does anyone have any information on this stamp. Scott has it among the engraved stamps that were printed in Japan by the Nakano Company. Gibbons says nothing except to list it as multicoloured but quite definitely excludes it from the Japanese engraved stamps and elsewhere I've seen it listed with Michel details as offset lithography and photogravure.



To me, the portrait parts seem raised while the background seems a mix of litho and photo. If the portrait was engraved, it is fairly crude and not of the quality that one expects from Japan but this was about the time they were experimenting with modern technology to assist with their engraving and all the lines are parallel which is not common in a hand engraving.

jjarmstrong47 you sure come up with some interesting stuff.

I'm curious though when you say


I didn't know that Scott ever mentions printer details except
in Scott Specialized Catalogue of United States Stamps.

The greenish black of the portrait does appear to be engraved
when compared to the other colours which look flat (offset/litho?)

Here are some French ones which are definitely engraved.

FRANCE 1949
100 years French postage stamps.

Ceres Scott 612 & 613

Designer: Jacques-Jean Barre

Engraver : Pierre Gandon

Marianne Scott 614 & 615

Designer & Engraver : Pierre Gandon

This stamp was also issued for the centenary of the
first French postage stamp.
The price of the stamp included admission to the
Centenary International Exibition, Paris, June 1949

Designer : Jacques-Jean Barre

Engraver : Pierre Gandon

Scott 624

FRANCE 1943

18th Century Costumes

Scott B167 - B172

Picardy

Designer : Antonin Delzers

Engraver : Gabriel-Antoine Barlangue



Brittany

Designer : Albert Decaris

Engraver : Emile Feltesse



Ile de France

Designer & Engraver : Charles Mazelin



Burgundy

Designer : Paul-Pierre Lemagny

Engraver : Charles-Paul Dufresne




Auvergne

Designer & Engraver : René Cottet




Provence

Designer & Engraver : Albert Decaris

FRANCE 1944

Personalities of the 17th Century

Scott B179 - 184

Moliere , French playwright and actor

Designer : Michel Ciry

Engraver : Charles Mazelin





Jules Hardouin-Mansart , French architect in the Baroque style.

Designer & Engraver : Pierre Gandon




Blaise Pascal, mathematician, physicist, inventor, writer and Christian philosopher

Designer : G. Edelinck

Engraver : Pierre Munier





Le Grand Condé, French general

Designer & Engraver : Albert Decaris




Jean-Baptiste Colbert, French politician was Minister of Finances during the rule of King Louis XIV.

Designer : after a portrait by Robert Nanteuil

Engraver : Pierre Munier





King Louis XIV, the Sun King

Designer & Engraver : Pierre Gandon

FRANCE 1943

Marshall Philippe Pétain, French Vichy leader.
The surtax was used for national relief.

Scott B152a



Scott B149 - B150

Designer & Engraver : Charles Mazelin
after a photo document by Draeger





Scott B151 - B152

Designer & Engraver : Jules Piel





The same design was used in 1941 see this thread page 187
Scott 415-418

Lithograving wrote:



I didn't express that very well. In Gibbons, this stamp has stamps from the Japanese printed before and after it which they list as recess. This stamp is simply listed as multicolour. In Scott, this is listed after a stamp that is labelled engraved which by the way they do things means that everything following is engraved until they say differently.

I agree that the dark section is raised giving it a recess look. I think I can see three types of printing here but it seems strange that they would combine recess, litho and photo in one stamp. Are there presses that could do that in one pass? Surely this stamp was not worth the amount of effort that seems to have gone into its production.

Of course it could just be a product of my over-active imagination.

jjarmstrong47, I have never heard of any press
capable of printing recess, litho and photo on one pass
but I suppose it would be possible.
Then again why bother with that combination, what effect
was the printer trying to achieve?
We've all seen recess combined with litho or photogravure
or typography (letterpress) or embossing and photo combined with
typo, even litho with photo.
And more recent hologram combined with litho or photogravure etc etc.

So SG still lists printers in their latest catalogues?

Michel used to list designers, engravers & printers but when I bought the new (then)
Michel Nord & NordwestEuropa 2004/05 lo and behold no designer, no engraver & no printer.
How long before the catalogues remove the print method?

I realize that with the flood of new issues they have to
conserve space but what good are these catalogues then?

For less and less info? For the wrong info?For their unrealistic prices?
Soon there will be just a cat# and pretty pictures of all the
stamps.
Wait a minute, Scott doesn't show all the stamps even now.

I collect old catalogues when I get the chance just for that reason so the one that gave me that information was from 1984. I bought a 1936 Gibbons that had information that was gone fifteen years later. They seem to have started reducing the information around 1950 but Gibbons are still pretty good with what they tell you. With printers they tend to give you a little printer box each time there is a change which will say something like All stamps to No 679 were typographed at the such and such State Printer unless stated otherwise. The Vietnam stamps around this one fall into the "unless stated otherwise" group but this one has no details at all but is very similar in printing to the ones around it from Japan. One of life's little mysteries, I suppose.

A question is posed as to whether there are/were presses capable of printing by three processes in one pass.

In 1994, the Danish Postal and Telegraph Museum, Copenhagen, released as a fundraiser a special label depicting its premises. These came in booklets or progressive "proof" sets within presentation packs with English or Danish text.

The dummy stamps were printed on a Goebel M4 printing press and used combination printing of intaglio, offset and gravure. Naturally, the press will have been primarily purchased to print actual postage stamps and I will leave it to the reader to go through the Danish catalogues to track down such issued items, assuming that they produced them in three processes (they may have only used two processes at a time on issued material for all I know).

As this is an engraving thread, note that the engraver was Arne Kühlmann.


Intaglio


Gravure


Offset


Complete