I Study... Aspects of an Airmail Design

Sometimes it is difficult admire the beauty of a lone tree amid a vast forest. This can also be the case when viewing a beautifully engraved stamp vignette with an elaborate border. It is true, of course, that the border should compliment the vignette, but I find it a bit of fun and quite interesting to separate the relative parts. I do this with the use of basic editing software. There are loads of editing software packages out there, and different people have their own preferences. I personally use Paint.net.  But enough of that. On with the show, as it were!

A great specimen to use for an exercise such as this is the France 1950 1,000f airmail stamp. Not only does it have a stunning vignette and lovely decorative border, each aspect of the design had a different engraver. This enables us to single out the vision of each engraver. It is true that I have already written a blog studying this stamp and the other stamps in this series - click HERE. But by employing the method mentioned above, hopefully we will see this stamp in a whole different light. And if not, it was a bit of fun.

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First, let's take a look at the entire stamp.

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Now let's manipulate the image a bit so we can focus solely on the vignette (central grey portion). This part of the stamp was designed and engraved by Albert Decaris.

There is instantly a different feel to the image. A smoky, dark presence yet an alluring quality that beckons us down into the design. To roam the narrow streets of Île de la Cité. To traverse the gorgeous, uniquely-styled bridges. To explore the stunning Cathedral of Notre Dame. Vraiment superbe!

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It was actually only recently that I realised that the border of this stamp was not designed and engraved by Decaris. This magnificent border was entrusted to Jacques Combet. Let's take a look at it with the vignette removed.

The fine details sculpted into this border are quite amazing!  The feathered wings down each side of the border. The intricate scrollwork. I particularly like the sailing vessels to be found at each corner! This border is a stunning piece of art in and of itself.

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Incidentally, this was not the only time these two engravers collaborated. In 1956 their talents were again combined to produce the 500f airmail stamp for St. Pierre et Miquelon, depicting a Douglas DC-3 over St Pierre Port. 

I believe Decaris was responsible for most of the work in this stamp and Combet engraved the lettering. Many thanks to Adrian at Stamp Engravers for his blog on this issue. To take a look at his blog post click HERE. It's well worth the read.

Anywho, enough from me for now. I hope you enjoyed this little exercise! What's the point of computers and all this fangled software if we can't play around with it from time to time?

Until next time...

I Study...Decaris' Marianne

Marianne is a national symbol of the Republic of France. She is the personification of liberty and reason, and she is often portrayed as the Goddess of Liberty. From the mid 1940's the face of Marianne began adorning postage stamps on a regular basis. Several distinguished stamp designers have applied their talents to creating their own unique versions of the iconic Marianne stamp design. Names like Dulac, Fernez, Muller, Bequet, and of course the stunning classic design by Gandon.

In 1960 Albert Decaris was given his turn. Unfortunately the chosen development of this stamp did not produce the best results. One wonders what the stamp would have looked like if Decaris had also engraved his design and if it were printed in Recess instead of Typography. But alas this was not the case.

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On 17 June 1960 France  issued the Marianne de Decaris stamp. The stamp was designed by Albert Decaris and engraved by Jules Piel. The issue was printed in Typography.

    

The design of this stamp was potentially really nice, but the method of printing, in my opinion, let the composition down somewhat. Having said that, it is still an appealing design and it is quite collectible, especially considering the numerous booklets available. 

But there is another major appeal to this design - for me, at least. It has two main variations or "Types". A bit of net searching revealed there are also many minor variations to look out for. For now, let's just focus on the two main types. How do we distinguish one from the other? Well, it's actually fairly simple, and if you have descent eyes, it can be done without any aids. Otherwise, a magnifying glass will be more than adequate. I have created a diagram - see below - to help us along. Looking at the diagram you can see immediately the different shading between the chin and the lower lip.

It is important to note at this point that I found some discrepancies between websites as to which variation is Type 1 and which is Type 2. One site I consulted had the types listed the opposite way around to what I have shown above. But I found two other reference sites that list them this way. So I have gone with the odds. If anyone has further information I'd love to hear from you - and if need be alter my diagram.

There is also another difference between Types 1 and 2, but I haven't been able to work it out clearly yet. All I know is that Type 2 has "trimmed vertical sides". Whether this refers to perforations or the stamp frame, I don't know. Again, if anyone can clear this up it would be great.

Until next time...

I Study...Some Printing Techniques

I have previously written two blogs studying the printing issues surrounding the France 1948 reissues of the 1946 Luxembourg Palace issue, designed and engraved by Albert Decaris. I think I have finally grasped the processes involved in creating the reissues, thanks to the help of a reader of the blog. Thanks Florian.

Okay, let's try to finally put the printing issues faced with the 1948 reissues to bed. I previously discussed the basic principles of intaglio printing, so I won't go into it all again. Click HERE for the blog. What I will do is elaborate on that process, which, I hope will finally explain why the 1948 Luxembourg reissues look different to the original issue in 1946. It has to do with the process required to create an altered reissue.

Here is a brief summary of what happens...to the best of my knowledge. A transfer roller or 'relief' roller is created from the master die. This 'relief' roller then has the alterations made to it. The raised or 'relief' portions that need to be changed are removed from the roller. Then this 'relief' roller is hardened, and used to create a secondary master die. It is on this secondary master die that the new values are created (by an in-house engraver). Then a transfer roller with the new value is created. It is these processes on top of further use by the transfer roller to the printing plate which can, over time, round the edges of the sharp lines of the engraving, having the effect of blurring the image somewhat. 

Also, as I stated in a previous blog (you can find the link above), the ink choice for the 15f stamp contributed to the blurring effect. The consistency of the red ink was quite thick and therefore more difficult to wipe away any excess, which ended up on the paper, effectively blotting the image.

I am the first to admit that I am the farthest thing removed from a printing expert as there ever can be, but I am slowly learning all the lingo etc... I do hope my rambling narrative of this process has not been too tiresome for you. As I said in the 'About Me' page, the purpose of the blog is to chronicle my learning journey, so I'm bound to get things wrong at times. But that's the fun of a hobby in my eyes.

Until next time...

Stay Decaris Crazy!

I Study...Printing Issues

In my last blog on 12 May I discussed some of the differences between the France 1946 10f Luxembourg stamp, issued on 29 July, and the 1948 12f and 15f reissues issued on 10 May and 10 December respectively. In that blog I suggested the possibility that the reissued values may have been different engravings. Now, I have to say, I did struggle with this idea. Why go to the trouble of re-engraving an entire stamp? And also, a fact that was pointed out in a very good blog by a former French printer (click HERE for the blog), no engraver, no matter how skilled, could replicate the exact same lines in a stamp. Such an endeavour would take even longer than the normally time-consuming and laborious job of engraving a unique design. Why go to all the fuss?

Why indeed! Well, it turns out France's postal authority didn't go to all that fuss. Either the original master die engraved by Albert Decaris or the transfer roller (not sure which) was altered in order to update the values.

So why then did I even entertain the notion of a re-engraved stamp? Well, firstly, as I pointed out in my last blog, it wasn't only the values that were changed. RF was changed to France. The position of Postes is different. And the shading lines along the top have been, naturally, altered to accommodate the changes.

Another bit of information regarding the above changes that I have found out since my last blog is the probability that Albert Decaris did not engrave the changes. These were, in all likelihood, executed in-house.

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The changes to the upper area of the reissues was not the only reason I considered the possibility that they were re-engraved. When I studied the 10f stamp against the 12f and 15f stamps I discovered many small differences that caused me to consider the possibility of an all new engraving. But the answer as to why there were so many small differences is quite probably twofold. And the first cause actually contributes to the second cause.

In order to explain the first cause for the subtle changes we need to understand the basic process of transferring an engraving to the printing plate. Basically what happens is the engraver creates an image in reverse on a metal die, which is the same size as the stamp. That die is then hardened. Then a transfer roller is applied to the die and rocked back and forth, impressing the image, now the right way around, onto its surface. The transfer roller is also hardened. 

Now that the image is fixed into the transfer roller it can be transferred to the printing plate. This is done in a similar way to the master die/transfer roller exchange. The transfer roller is applied to the printing plate over and over, depending on how many stamps are required per sheet. In the case of the Luxembourg Issue there were fifty stamps per sheet. So the transfer roller was applied to the plate fifty times.

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Okay, now that we've discussed the process of plate production we can examine where the changes to the actual stamps start to occur. As I said earlier, in order for the printing plate to be created the transfer roller needed to be literally pushed into the metal of the plate some fifty times, and that is just for the first plate of the first issue (I have no idea how many plates were made for this issue). So we can naturally assume that the transfer roller developed a certain amount of wear and tear over time. This wear and tear would appear on stamps as blurry, less crisp lines within the image. This is exactly what we see in the re-issues.

The second cause of the changes was the colour choice for the re-issues. Two shades of red were used for the re-issues. According to Y&T the 12f was red-carmine and the 15f was plain old red. Red is notorious for having the effect of blurring images. Then when we add the fact that the lines on the plating plate were themselves starting to blur...well, we have our answer!

To conclude my rambling, the Luxembourg Issues were not re-engraved. The subtle changes in the stamps are due to wear and tear on the printing plates and the colour choice of the stamps.

Until next time...

Stay Decaris Crazy!

I Study...The Luxembourg Palace Issues

Yesterday I received a comment on one of my blog posts regarding the Luxembourg Palace issues designed and engraved by Albert Decaris. The reader asked me to add an image of the 10f value to my 1948 reissues blog so he could compare the different values against each other (click HERE). I was happy to help him out, and I have to admit that even though I did a blog for the 10f and a separate blog for the reissues, I never thought to compare the different printings. I just assumed they were from the same die with simply a value change. 

So I took out my 10f 1946 stamp and my 12 and 15f 1948 stamps and laid them out side by side. I was immediately surprised at three glaring differences that are so obvious I can't believe I had missed them! I guess sometimes you don't see what's right in front of you. And the more I looked the more differences I found. This got me to thinking: are the reissues totally different engravings?

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Below is the top portion of the 10f and 15f together for comparison. I have circled the three main differences. Note that the 12f is the same as the 15f so there was no need to add it here.

The biggest difference is the name, which in turn, contributes to the other two changes. The original 10f value has only the initials "RF", whereas the 15f value has the full name "France". This change completely alters the shading at the top middle and the top right corner to the point where in the corner it is non-existent in the reissue.

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I found some more differences between the original and the reissues. But are these differences due to engraving variances or are they merely a result of colour choice? Both the 1948 reissue stamps were printed in red, which make the image look rather heavy, blotting out some fine details. I have again circled some of the differences in fine detail that I found between the issues. 

Firstly, if we compare the detail I have highlighted within the rectangle of the 10f stamp with the two other values, there is a distinct difference in the clarity of detail. The red seems to have obscured the background somewhat. So I ask again: is this an engraving difference or merely a  colour difference? Not sure? Take a look at the pot on the 10f value. The outline is far better than the reissues. The same goes for the signature; the 10f is by far the clearest of the three. And if you look closely you will notice that the "I' is not dotted in the original 10f, but it is dotted in the reissues. 

These are but a select few of the numerous differences I have found all over the stamps. In fact, as I write this blog with the comparison image staring me in the face I just noticed that the shading on the top left border area is also different. I could go on and on, but I think I've rambled enough for this blog. Perhaps another blog at a later date looking at a few more differences...

To conclude, I initially believed that the reissues of this stamp were from the same die with the value changed, but all the differences suggests to me they were different engravings. I could be totally wrong here, so if anyone has any additional information on the printing of these issues I'd love to hear from you.

Until next time...

Stay Decaris Crazy!