Collecting By Engraver

Fifia, thanks for your contribution but that Romanian stamp
is an offset print not engraved.

Florian: What kind of printing were they meant for?
Whatever the reason, adapting them to print stamps
was a brilliant idea and the results were unmatched by
any other printers.
The only problem appears to be the running of these presses was very
labour intensive going by what you say about hand feeding each
sheet and 12 hour drying times between each colour run.
Then again under communism I guess it was feasible and there was
some hard currency income from the sale of stamps to rich western
countries.

Czechoslovakian Art set of 1968.
Florian: were they printed off the Waite or the Heim press ?

Engravers : Josef Hercik (60h, 80h), Bedrich Housa (1.20K),
Jiri Svengsbir (1.60K), Jindra Schmidt (3K)

Scott 1589 - 1593

Souvenir sheet issued in 1968 for the 50th Anniversary of the founding
of the Czechoslovak Republic.
The stamp design is based on the 1919 issue Scott Sp1 which
was printed typography.

Designer : J. Obrovsky

Engraver : Josef Hercik

Printing Press : ?

Scott 1581







Czechoslovakia

Scott B126

Child welfare charity semi -postals 1948

Designer : Karel Svolinsky

Engravers :Ladislav Jirka (150K+1K), Jan Mracek (2K + 1K)
Jiri Svengsbir (3K + 1K)

Printing press : Rotary Stickney or Johnston flat plate ?
I would guess the Stickney because of the colour
migration due to wet printing similar to US BEP
stamps printed using the Stickney until 1962


Scott B163 - B165

lithograving - Specific printing presses have never been mentioned in info on new issues.

Such details have as a rule appeared in interviews with senior postage stamp master printers on their recollections published years and even decades after everything happened.

The 1935 Arras issue was engraved by Karel Seizinger while the 1938 Sokol and the 1938 Battles issues were both engraved by Bohumil Heinz.

It is enough for me to have the various issues referred to by the year of issue and just one characteristic word, or the face value concerned as the only foreign catalogues I possess are a Stanley Gibbons Stamps of the World 1971 and a complete set of the French Yvert 1960.

Camilo Delhom Rodríguez (1894-1970) engraved stamps and banknotes for his native Spain, including some printed by Waterlow & Sons, Ltd., London, and others by the Spanish Mint. Here are images of five examples of Delhom's engraving work.

- nethryk

Christopher Columbus, airmail stamp printed by W&S, and issued on September 29, 1930, Scott No. C47, Edifil No. 563.


Two stamps from a set printed by W&S, issued on October 10, 1931 to publicize the Third Pan-American Postal Union Congress, held in Madrid, Scott Nos. 491 & 492, Edifil Nos. 604 & 605.

Fountain of Lions in the Alhambra, Granada


Interior of Mosque, Córdoba, Andalusia


Cliff houses at Cuenca, printed by FNMT, and issued in 1937, Scott No. 539, Edifil No. 673.


Gaspar Melchor de Jovellanos (1744-1811), Asturian-born Spanish neoclassical statesman, author, philosopher and a major figure of the Age of Enlightenment in Spain, printed by FNMT, and issued in 1936, Scott No. 549, Edifil No. 687.

Yes that is a pity. The USPS and Australia Post have for many
years provided this information.
Too bad other countries don't.

History of Swedish Aviation issued in 1984

Engraver : Zlatko Jakus

Printing process : multicolour engraving

Scott 1516 Souvenir Sheet



Scott 1516e

lithograving - Back to your queries posted 01/19/2012 4:39 pm.

Quote: I had heard of the Stickney press but not of the others.

Actually, I have not mentioned an old Hummel flat plate press used for printing sheets of up to 100 stamps from 1925 till 1930s (such as part of the 1925 President Masaryk definitives different from Stickeny prints, the 2 Kè and 3Kè Prague and 4Kè and 5Kè Upper Tatras definitives from 1926, the 1928 10th Anniv. Independence issue, the 1929 St. Wenceslas Millenium, the 1930 President Masaryk's 80th Birthday, the 1930 Airmails) and a Czech-made Nádherný flat plate press for printing sheets of up to 100 stamps used for the 1923 5th Anniv. of the Republic issue and additional prints of the 1930 Airmails from the year 1938 as well as the 1939 30h Airmail inscribed Èesko-Slovensko.

lithograving - My country has had a long tradition of producing engraved stamps designed by graphic artists who have always had their say in the reproduction techniques of their works of art.

Max Švabinský (1873-1962), professor of graphic arts (between 1910 and 1927) and of monumental painting (from 1927) in the Academy of Visual Arts, Prague, held the view that postage stamps and money represented their country of issue and as such deserved the utmost care in execution.

In 1929, he saw to it that his design for the 100Kè banknote (printed by the Czechoslovak National Bank Security Printing House, Prague, and issued on Jan. 10, 1931) was engraved by the famous Vienna engraver Ferdinand Schirnböck (1859-1930).

Similarly, Karel Svolinský (1896-1986), professor in the College of Applied Arts, Prague, expressed his view that he was in favour of postage stamps printed by the noble technique of unadulterated line engraving, admitting that, out of necessity, he might perhaps also accept typography.

The graphic artist Jiøí Antonín Švengsbír (1921-1983), great admirer of the Czech émigré engraver Václav Hollar Bohemus, had his Praga 1950 Historical Views of the City issue printed by the Heim flat plate press, and, in 1965, it was him who initiated the yearly issues of the Art series by proving that multicolour engraving could be produced from flat press plates to interpret paintings such as Titian's Young Woman at her Toilet Table, issued as an M/S on August 12, 1965, and followed by 4 more works of art in his interpretation plus one more done by the engraver Josef Herèík, all the five stamps issued on Dec. 8, 1966.

The engraver Jindøich Schmidt's initiative to put through Svolinský's stamps in multicolour engraving printed by Johnston and Waite flat plate presses and issued on July 25, 1955 as the Folk Costume set have already been mentioned.

Both designers and engravers have as a rule been present at the printing presses in the Postal Security Printing House to give their final approval before the printing is started.

lithograving - Now back to your queries posted 01/19/2012 8:12 pm.

Quote: These Waite and Heim presses are said to have never been meant by their manufacturers for printing postage stamps.
Florian: What kind of printing were they meant for?

My answer: The Johnston, Waite and Heim flat plate presses were said to have been originally meant for printing engraved letterheads, various luxury prints decorated with hand engraving and similar products.

Beautiful stamps such as those printed by these presses have always been produced ad maiorem patriae gloriam, for the greater glory of the native country, be her free or under foreign (German or Russian) domination because a smallish nation like ours cannot choose where to exist and our people have lived here and held their own for well over a millennium both in times of favour or adversity, so it has never been hard currency income from the sale of stamps to rich western countries that such stamps were created for.

Back in 1963, on a refresher course away from home, I could see a colleague of mine putting some 15h and 30h stamps of the 1961 Butterfly set on his viewcards. Asked where they were sold, he told me he had bought them in 1961. He was not a stamp collector, just a lover of the fine arts, who had come across those stamps at a post office in his place.

lithograving - Yes, you are right, the 1948 Child Welfare Charity semi-postals were printed by the Stickney rotary press. The very first stamps printed in sheets of 12 stamps by flat plate presses appeared in 1950. They were issued for the Praga 1950 Postage Stamp Exhibition (historical views of Prague). In 1951 these were followed by the 5.00Kès stamp for Julius Fuèík issued on Feb.17 (still printed in sheets of 12 while the 1.50Kès value of the same set was done on the Stickney rotary press) and the 1.50Kès and 2.00Kès values for the Prague Spring Music Festival issued on May 30 (now in sheets of 10 while the 1.00Kès and 3.00Kès values were printed by the Stickney rotary press). Note the characteristic differences in perforations between flat-plate- and rotary-press stamps.

The early post-war stamps such as the 1947 Lidice set or the 1948 Child Welfare semi-postals bring back memories on my boyhood when the kind postmistress used to ask my father to tell me she had some new stamps for me. In 1949 an uncle of mine brought me a set of the Netherlands Voor het Kind semi-postals issued on Nov. 14, 1949 and similar in design to ours.

nethryk - Do you happen to have any info on this 1949 Netherlands VOOR HET KIND issue?

lithograving - Well, I have answered your questions, so let's change the subject again.

Thanks to you and the other posters I do have plenty to look at closely and enjoy.

Thank you very much indeed.

I have recently picked a real bargain in the January sales: a splendid Czech edition of The World Encyclopedia of Stamps and Stamp Collecting by Dr. Janes Mackay published in this country in 2007.

Would someone be in a position to oblige me with a photocopy of the English-language original of the two pages on Czechoslovakia sent to my e-mail address?
Thank you. - florian