Postage Stamp Chat Board & Stamp Forum

I was just going through my Swedish booklets and was again as always struck by the engraving on these stamps.

Some are by the famous master engraver Slania who not only engraved hundreds of Swedish stamps, but also those of Poland (his native country), Denmark, Iceland and many more, even one for the US.

Hope you enjoy them as much as I do.

Absolutely beautiful work.
Look at that detail.

Now I want some!

I think every year, every country should release a "Heritage Issue" of stamp, done by a master engraver resulting in stamps like the one above. 8)

That alone would draw many more into the stamp collecting fraternity. They will consider stamps as works of art, like they used to.

I agree with you totally but how many countries or printing companies for that matter still have recess capabilities and where are the master engravers ?

And on top of everything the cost of producing engraved vs offset/lithography is much more expensive which is of course of primary importance to Postal Authorities and who can blame them.

Which one did he do for the US? The Greta Garbo one?

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/

More from Slania....








and one by Majvor Franzen, who was another excellent Swedish engraver

Hard to go past Engraving for beauty. This is one of my favourites.

The early Canada revenues were always nice examples of the engraver's art:

Many forget SLANIA engraved just one set for Australia too -- the 1984 Aviation. Our first intaglio/recess printed stamps for decades.

I only remembered that when adding this lot for sale with the Lawrence Hargraves stamp in specially numbered sheets of 25!

https://www.stampboards.com/viewtopic.php?f=27&t=3576

I love the John Bauer booklet pane.
The four stamps belong to best ever printed IMHO.
Recess printing is art at its best.

Regards, Lars

figmente wrote:

I remember reading an article saying that Slania engraved himself (and couple of his friends) on this stamp. If I remember correctly, the skiier on the bottom left corner is Slania.

Yes keep those beauties coming.

Here are a couple of recent Canadian engraved examples which I find very well done.

Canada Post has issued very few engraved stamps in the last 20 years even though Canadian Bank Note (one of the 2 Canadian security printers) apparently bought a new printing press specifically for multicolour intaglio a couple of years back. Since CBNC also prints banknotes I suppose it is mainly used for that purpose.

That 'founding of Quebec' Canadian stamp was a joint issue with France. Here's France's version (detail from a joint issue FDC):

Dead link removed

Such detail on engraved stamps - amazing! That's partly the reason why I love to collect pre-decimals.

Found a nice one, as well:
Dead link removed but I believe this was the stamp


Canada Millenium Dove

Hi ,The detail on some of these is just breathtaking,which is why I dont like newer processes for producing stamps.All about cost now these days and very little to do with Quality.
Cheers
Wayne

There are many engraved stamps wich are are well done but I don't particularly favor them over other or newer processes.

[quote="jugoslavija_post"]Found a nice one, as well:




I love how the feathers are done in this stamp!

Great stuff in the entire thread.

I loved this one when I scanned it. Superb - a classic . .and only $A30 when I sold it!

That's a great looking stamp Glen, nice scan

There are many engraved stamps wich are are well done but I don't particularly favor them over other or newer processes.

Yes there are many nice labels printed nowadays such as lenticular stamps, gold foil, varnish on stamps, photo/litho stamps just as fine as photographs, embossed, etc, etc... but for my money engraved stamps are king.

Just to add a little here though. Back in the middle sixties when all Canadian stamps where printed by steel engraving, mostly one colour but some bi-colour, I wrote a letter (still have it) to the Philatelic section complaining about the drab, boring engraved stamps and asking why they can't finally issue some colourful stamps like other countries.
Lesson there, be careful what you wish for.

The 1929 50c dark blue Bluenose is one of my favorites. A cornerstone of any collection of Canadian stamps.

The Canadian Bluenose has got to be one of the best ever. It's beautiful.

Some of mine:

jugoslavija_post wrote:

That's a terrific one, Erik!

I don't have a scanner myself, but here's the best photo I've taken of a stamp:


And some more from the internet:
Tobacco Stamp


Ethiopia 1 Thaler


Perak $1 Elephant


Mexico 1866

1898 10c GRAY VIOLET HARDSHIPS OF EMIGRATION ex David Barton

Part of the Trans-Mississippi Exposition

The scans in this thread are just fantastic

Don't forget the engraved seahorse:

lithograving wrote:

This one stamp is very nice! The artwork and details are just amazing!

I didn't realize that there were so many contemporary stamps that were still being engraved. I've enjoyed seeing what is out there. Thanks everyone.

It was the beauty of the older engraved stamps that got me into collecting more of the older stuff. For whatever reason a lot of S. American/Central American stamps were produced out of country. I don't know if they were the equivalent of the C.T.O. stamps of today but these beauties are literally a dime a dozen when it comes to catalog value. I especially like the stuff the American Bank Note Company put out. Here's one that's a little busy and they sure didn't scrimp on the ink pallet:



Another thats more conservative and more to my liking:



And finally here is a stamp that just jumps off the page everytime you turn to it. It reminds me of looking in one of those old nature books with the wonderful engraved pictures. This one is from Waterlow and Sons:



Phil

Eric, those are nice scans especially the 5/ Robe.


Yes the Bluenose is also one of my favourites but alas I don't have copy myself. I didn't know until I saw your closeup that there was a 1 and a 2 engraved in the sails.

Here are some Austrian engraved from the 1947 series for the Arts Exhibition in Vienna.
Designer on bottom left, engraver on bottom right. You may note that they used 4 different engravers for this 10 stamp series, each in my opinion excellent. In addition to these, the Austrian State Printer had at least another half dozen stamp engravers during this time period.





















Here are closeups of a couple of the portraits

It's hard to resist this thread.

Canada has so many great engraved stamps:

I've begun looking through catalogs, looking for engraved stamps from many countries, to add to my want list. I figure this will give me plenty of collecting opportunities for many decades.

Dead links removed

Yes Czechoslovakia had some fine engravers. I suppose the Czech Republic still engraves most stamps but not sure.

They do.

That souvenir sheet from Czech Republic is stunning figmente.

Here are a few more Czechoslovakian Beauties to add to yours.

Dead links removed

Couple of nice ones Erik, keep them coming.

Below are a few closeups from the ones I showed in the previous post which weren't too sharp.

I don't know if someone has posted this link previously but this is an excellent site showing Czech stamp designers and engravers.

http://www.batz-hausen.de/titel.htm

Here is a beautifully engraved set issued by Austria in 1964 for the 15th Universal Postal Union Congress held in Vienna.
Called The Post in Art the first six are based on well known paintings and the last two are by Adelbert Pilch who designed many Austrian stamps.