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Hello,

After my unfruitful question re the typing of the 1929 Orleans stamp, I'll try something else

The 15c type sage from 1892 had a grid of varnish on the back to try and stop cheating. If chemicals were used to try and remove a cancellation, the varnish would then show through to the front. Obviously, this wasn't a great success as it is the only French stamp to have had this idea applied to it.

The stamp on the left below shows these grid lines clearly.



The stamp on the right, on the other hand, has the varnish in the squares rather than forming grid lines. Has anyone else ever seen this before? How could it have happened? Does anyone know just how the varnish was applied to the stamps?

Thanks,
Alastair

Hello,
the stamps before the "Paix et Commerce" issue were printed on coloured paper. The Sage were the fisrt french stamps printed on white paper for reasons of cost. But there were 2 impressions : first a colour background, then the stamp. Instead of the coloured ink, the 15 centimes gets a clear varnish grid.
All the impressions are typographic.

Alastair, you should not be too much eager for scientific answers to your question. This stamp was printed by hundreds of millions, and has not been studied in much detail, apart from the sub-types of the engraving.

The varnish print was applied on the front, not on the back.

Depending on the ink and the paper, the aspect may vary, from invisible varnish to pretty obvious varnish lines. E.g, I have seen one or two stamps where the varnish ink responds (yellow) to UV light (french wave length). Of course that might come from the conditions of soaking from a cover.

Regards, Bruno

Thanks, Philippe and Bruno, for your replies.

If I put them together, would I be right in thinking the varnish was applied to the front via a plate (typographic)? In that case, it would surely be impossible to get the varnish from that plate as shown in the right-hand stamp, unless there was also an "inverted" plate where the squares were to be prominent in place of the lines. Could that be possible?

As the varnish was to test forgery-resistance, it could be that such a plate was used since the squares would give a higher percentage of paper covered thus improving the counter-forgery concept.

This is, of course, pure speculation. I remain intrigued.

Alastair

Merry Christmas,
I just read that M. Hulot was really obsessed with falsification and that he had already conducted tests of safety by printing a background composed of small squares of 2 mm side on his 20 c Ceres in 1849 (Victor Robert, Les timbres de France 1849-1872, éditions Yvert & Tellier 1922, p11).
The process was so long known. Maybe there were two types of safety background, formed by a grid or by squares, for the "Paix et Commerce" stamps?

My best wishes to everybody,

I believe that what Mr Robert described in 1922 didn't survive as a today's recognized feature. This is nowadays completely unknown, unquoted...

As regards 15c Sage with the square safety varnish grid, it was issued in 1890, ten years after Anatole Hulot had been sternly pushed into retirement. Nevertheless, fraud was still an issue, hence this stamp.

Bruno

Hi Bruno,



So the stamp was printed with squares before the grid lines, in 1892?

What is the difference between these and Quadrille paper which also has squares as a watermark. The Sage printed on quadrille paper is listed in SG but the varnish is not.

I think the description in SG must be misleading as there are no watermarks on this series of stamps.

I don't know it you are talking about this colonies series too?




This 15c is the only Indochina stamp with the same mark, according to Yvert's:



I can hardly believe the mark had been applied on the front!

Nguyen,

Yes, this 15c colonies stamp has the grid lines too. A quick check shows that the "quadrillé" paper was also used in Congo and Senegal, for example.

Were these Sage colonial issues used much in France?
I ask as I have these two, one of which has a Rennes cancel, so I was wondering if at least the Rennes one is a postal stationery cut-out?
The 5c is thin paper, the 15c medium to thick.
Thanks!

_________________
Collecting used world stamps to 1920, m/m and used Australia upto 2013 and used Australia State stamps.

Just thought I'd bump this to see if anyone can provide the info in my post above, Sorry!

_________________
Collecting used world stamps to 1920, m/m and used Australia upto 2013 and used Australia State stamps.

I'm sure they are both mutilated postal stationery.

_________________
Jay Carrigan
http://www.jaypex.com

Perfect: so the French did use postal stationery in this era then.
I had problems finding out anything about the Peace and Commerce issue when searching the net, never mind postal stationery. The best two results I got from the net were both found right here at SB.

One thing: are you saying they are mutilated because they are cut-outs or am I missing something?
Cheers.

_________________
Collecting used world stamps to 1920, m/m and used Australia upto 2013 and used Australia State stamps.

Yes they are cut outs, hence mutilated.......

Cheers.
I'm getting quite a collection of these cut outs, none of which I'll be keeping.

_________________
Collecting used world stamps to 1920, m/m and used Australia upto 2013 and used Australia State stamps.

Alastair.

I saw some fournier forgeries on ebay a while ago. The reverse of the forgery, as far as I can remember, looked just like your stamp.

I may be wrong, but its worth investigating.

Postal Stationery cut-outs were very popular once and priced in catalogues accordingly.

If memory serves, all nations wanting to be members of the UPU had to have postal stationery.

Cheers,

Robert

Dynamode,

Thanks for the heads up. I'll try to check that out.

Alastair