Engraved Stamp Beauties

Global Administrator · Post by **Global Administrator** » 04 Mar 2010 20:05

1935 Anzac. The $3,000 scarce perf.

Global Administrator · Post by **Global Administrator** » 05 Mar 2010 00:16

The KGVI engraved pictorial issues from Africa/Asia are hard to beat. I just listed these today for $10 a set .. the last new issue from Aust Post costs more than that!

https://www.stampboards.com/viewtopic.php?f=27&t=17635

BACK O BOURKE · Post by **BACK O BOURKE** » 05 Mar 2010 21:26

aethelwulf · Post by **aethelwulf** » 05 Mar 2010 21:52

BACK O' BOURKE wrote:]

Given the size of Trist, that could be the spinning wheel on the island.

BACK O BOURKE · Post by **BACK O BOURKE** » 05 Mar 2010 22:13

1886-1898 Queen Victoria Issue

lithograving · Post by **lithograving** » 06 Mar 2010 04:29

BACK O' BOURKE wrote:1886-1898 Queen Victoria Issue

They are real beauties even though they are letterpress.

lithograving · Post by **lithograving** » 06 Mar 2010 11:03

Belgium engraved stamps are in the top 10 in my opinion. All are produced by Atelier du Timbre in Malines.

Pen drawing by Pieter Brueghel the Elder

lithograving · Post by **lithograving** » 06 Mar 2010 11:21

The country of Belgium has only existed since 1830 and before that had various rulers including the House of Valois-Burgundy and The House of Hapsburg, some of which are shown in this set.

Phillip the Good (Valois-Burgund)

Charles the Bold (Valois-Burgund)

Maximillian I (Hapsburg)

Phillip the Fair (Hapsburg)

Charles V (Hapsburg)

Coat of Arms, Phillip the Good

KevinHedley · Post by **KevinHedley** » 06 Mar 2010 11:48

That first one from Belgium is a beauty

They are continuing the tradition. These are the Tourism - Places of Pilgrimage set from 2004:

lithograving · Post by **lithograving** » 06 Mar 2010 11:50

The following are some of Belgium's annual Day of the Stamp issues.

lithograving · Post by **lithograving** » 06 Mar 2010 11:54

KevinHedley wrote:That first one from Belgium is a beauty

They are continuing the tradition. These are the Tourism - Places of Pilgrimage set from 2004:
...

...

I haven't seen these before and yes they are excellent, look almost like Slania's work.

lithograving · Post by **lithograving** » 07 Mar 2010 12:57

Belgium : Famous Flemish Painters.

lithograving · Post by **lithograving** » 07 Mar 2010 13:08

And here for a change of pace, a bit of modern art by Austrian painter, Friedensreich Hundertwasser.

Would someone know what this represents ?

machin head · Post by **machin head** » 09 Mar 2010 16:54

Some of my favourite "Beauties" from Finland and Iceland ... 8)

machin head · Post by **machin head** » 09 Mar 2010 18:00

^ i suspect a few of those may not be engraved they seem very finely done ...

Some of those Iceland ones again enlarged

And a little beauty from St Lucia

BACK O BOURKE · Post by **BACK O BOURKE** » 09 Mar 2010 20:42

Mengkiang 1941 SYS die II & III $1 small type overprint

lithograving · Post by **lithograving** » 10 Mar 2010 02:47

^ i suspect a few of those may not be engraved they seem very finely done ...

They all appear to be line engraved except for the red crosses which where typographed (letterpress). Finland is another country that produced fine engraved stamps but now only use the litho-offset method.

lithograving · Post by **lithograving** » 10 Mar 2010 02:53

BACK O' BOURKE wrote:Mengkiang 1941 SYS die II & III $1 small type overprint

[/img]

What is the difference in the two dies? To me the one on the left has a sharper vignette and the colour is slightly different.
Is that it ?

iomoon · Post by **iomoon** » 10 Mar 2010 06:17

More Slania, this time the Faroe Islands.
Dead links removed by moderator

NewPhilatelist · Post by **NewPhilatelist** » 10 Mar 2010 06:40

iomoon wrote:More Slania, this time the Faroe Islands.

Dead link removed

These are fantastic! I always get that 'standing alone on a cold blustery shore' feeling when I see this set. Slania has really captured a confluence of beauty and dreariness.

Global Administrator · Post by **Global Administrator** » 10 Mar 2010 14:02

Something I just listed here for sale - https://www.stampboards.com/viewtopic.php?f=27&t=17769

St.Lucia. KGV Defins, Top 3 values of the set.

SG 122/124. I cannot believe 3 top value KGV stamps can be only $A70. The last 2 Australia Post annual albums cost 40% more than this!

The three top value Ozzie defins for this same period (SG 136/8) cost near a HUNDRED times that. Go figger.

tonymacg · Post by **tonymacg** » 11 Mar 2010 00:20

De La Rue at the height of the post-War powers: the 1947 Jaipur Maharaja's Silver Jubilee set, SG 71-79

First member to email me a plausible reason why they should have these stamps, can have them

Rein · Post by **Rein** » 11 Mar 2010 07:10

lithograving wrote:
jugoslavija_post wrote:Which one did he do for the US? The Greta Garbo one?
Yes and a few others

http://www.slaniastamps-heindorffhus.com/

Piotr Naszarkowski:

http://www.knottywood-treasures.com/id27.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

lithograving · Post by **lithograving** » 11 Mar 2010 08:52

Thanks for the correction Rein.

Rein · Post by **Rein** » 11 Mar 2010 09:20

machin head wrote:^ i suspect a few of those may not be engraved they seem very finely done ...

Which stamps are you referring to???

Some Finnish stamps may look engraved but are probably etched.... Is that what you mean???

figmente · Post by **figmente** » 21 Mar 2010 11:56

tazzles · Post by **tazzles** » 25 Mar 2010 11:11

lithograving wrote:And here for a change of pace, a bit of modern art by Austrian painter, Friedensreich Hundertwasser.

Would someone know what this represents ?

As far as I am aware, these are colour variations on Hundertwasser's 1993 work "Blue Blues".

KevinHedley · Post by **KevinHedley** » 27 Apr 2010 17:56

A couple of issues from 2009:

......

Catweazle · Post by **Catweazle** » 29 Apr 2010 20:03

Dead link removed

KevinHedley · Post by **KevinHedley** » 24 May 2010 20:51

This one issued in January:

muruk · Post by **muruk** » 24 May 2010 23:14

NewPhilatelist wrote:These North Borneo stamps are what inspired me to collect engraved beauties.

Wow, I got a cousin in North Borneo.

jugoslavija_post · Post by **jugoslavija_post** » 28 May 2010 09:53

jugoslavija_post · Post by **jugoslavija_post** » 28 May 2010 09:54

jugoslavija_post · Post by **jugoslavija_post** » 28 May 2010 09:54

jugoslavija_post · Post by **jugoslavija_post** » 28 May 2010 09:54

KevinHedley · Post by **KevinHedley** » 16 Jun 2010 20:41

joelk · Post by **joelk** » 17 Jun 2010 08:25

No point without the cats...From Belgian Congo, but engraved by Waterlow and Sons in London...

Catweazle · Post by **Catweazle** » 20 Jun 2010 18:14

I don't know why I didn't think of this before. The Penny black is actually nicely engraved:

joelk · Post by **joelk** » 21 Jun 2010 04:47

Issued by France in 1955 and engraved by Pierre Gandon (in my personal view the best engraver ever), one of my all time favourites. The woman's face is stunning and so finely engraved

Catweazle · Post by **Catweazle** » 21 Jun 2010 16:23

Saw these stamps in an ebay lot. Just love the bottom left stamp! Superb engraving and such detail! 8) If someone else has that particular stamp, can you scan it real big and post it here (or take a clear, closeup shot with your camera)?

Dead link removed

KevinHedley · Post by **KevinHedley** » 21 Jun 2010 19:45

As requested by Catweazle:

joelk · Post by **joelk** » 22 Jun 2010 06:16

A great classic, issued by France in 1936, and engraved by Gustave Gandon, father of Pierre Gandon. While Pierre Gandon was a very prolific engraver, his father only engraved 2 stamps for France: this one and the Cathedral of Strasburg in 1939.

ConnieB · Post by **ConnieB** » 24 Jun 2010 01:55

There are so many beautiful stamps here. I'll see if I can find something to post.

lithograving · Post by **lithograving** » 26 Jun 2010 12:56

I agree with you joelk that Gandon was an excellent engraver. Here are a couple he did for the French Painting series. He was very prolific and must have been employed by the French State Printers for well over 30 years since he engraved his first stamp in 1941.

Below is one he engraved for Monaco

lithograving · Post by **lithograving** » 26 Jun 2010 13:15

A few more from France.

Issued in honour of George VI visit to France in 1938.

Emanuel Chabrier, composer

Jules Massenet, composer

Charles Gounod, composer

Notice that the first one has only RF to designate the country's name Republique Francaise whereas the latter three issued during the Vichy years are inscribed Postes Francaises and finally just France

After the war they again returned to using RF

lithograving · Post by **lithograving** » 26 Jun 2010 13:27

Some from West Germany (Bundesrepublik Deutschland )

These were issued to promote Tourism showing various scenes and place names. Just simple line engravings but in my opinion quite pleasing to the eye.

lithograving · Post by **lithograving** » 26 Jun 2010 13:33

Here are some more German ones showing famous personalities.

Look at the fine detail of the face.

tonymacg · Post by **tonymacg** » 26 Jun 2010 15:21

An anonymous engraver for Perkins, Bacon - Cochin SG 64

AKPhilately · Post by **AKPhilately** » 27 Jun 2010 01:13

Wow!
I've just discovered this topic and it immediately rekindled my love for recess-printed stamps. I don't see why anyone would bother to collect anything other than these stamps. So beautiful! Here's another gem from Austria.

joelk · Post by **joelk** » 27 Jun 2010 01:47

Lithograving, you inspired me with your postings of Gandon engraving to start a series here focusing on individual engravers (in fact I gave a lecture in 2006 at the Singapore Stamp Club when I lived in Singapore on this very subject). I will start this weekend with Pierre Gandon.

He was born in 1899. His father, Gustave Gandon, as indicated in a previous post, was also an engraver.

Pierre Gandon won the Prix de Rome for engraving in 1921, thus at the age of 22. The Prix de Rome was a very prestigious scholarship for art students created in 1663 during the reign of Louis XIV, and the best competed to win in each category (architecture, painting, scuplture, musical composition and engraving). The engraving category was added in 1804. In the painting category for example, illustrious talents like Manet and Degas attempted and failed to win this coveted prize.

Among the winners in the engraving category were other famous stamp engravers: Henry Cheffer (1906), Jules Piel (1910) and Albert Decaris (1911). I will post on each of these in the coming weekends.

Gandon had to wait until 1941 for his chance, as lithograving said, and engraved a stamp known as 'Native Woman' for the French Colony of Dahomey. I don't have this stamp but I do have one of his earliest efforts (from may 1942). Issued by France itself, also on a colonial theme, it was titled 'Colonial fortnight (quinzaine imperiale)':

Since he was engraving stamps for the Vichy regime, we also find the inevitable portrait of marshal Petain, issued on March 31, 1942:

And given the times, he engraved the equally unpleasant stamp of the 'Tricolour Legion (legion tricolore)', which was really an attempt by the Vichy Government to re-channel the LVF and align it more to French objectives while remaining collaborationist. The LVF, Legion of French Volunteers against Bolshevism, was a Collaborationist French Militia integrated with the Wermacht, whose volunteers fought alongside the Germans on the Eastern Front:

But the stamp that Gandon was most criticized for at the Liberation and which caused him to be suspended from his job for a few months, was issued in August 1943. It was meant to be a protest against the Allied bombings on strategic targets in France. Those were in fact naval construction sites as well as harbors: Dunkerke, Lorient and St Nazaire, while Billancourt was the site of the Renault factory:

However, Gandon's talent could not be ignored for long, and after being shunned for a short period of time, he was called upon in January 1945 to engrave a stamp commemorating the liberation of Paris:

But that's not all: Gandon liked to recount that during the actual battle for Paris, in the summer of 1944, while he was in is workshop surrounded by resistance fighters (FFI) shooting at Germans, he received a phone call from the French Postmaster. He was told that he had been selected, along with Cheffer and Mazelin, to participate in a contest to design and engrave a portrait of Marianne.

Marianne is a symbol of the French revolution, and the stamp was to be used as the basis for the first main post-war definitive. The judge of the contest was none other than Charles de Gaulle.

Of course, Gandon most probably exaggerated the circumstances of the contest, but it is true that his was the winning design and it was indeed chosen by de Gaulle. Gandon chose his wife Jacqueline as a model for the portrait. Here are two images of her (fairly young and then again much older, in the workshop):

And the famous series 'Marianne de Gandon', a really gorgeous work of engraving, in small and large formats:

And finally, for this first installment, the reason why I love line engraving (otherwise known as intaglio or recess-printing) so much as an art form and by far the most beautiful way to make a postage stamp. This is a comparison between the engraved Marianne and the stamp issued in typography, based on exactly the same design.

And the next installment of the story will be Gandon's career after the war. In fact he engraved French stamps well into his 80's, with his last effort being the series 'Liberte de Gandon' which was first issued in January 1982.