USA [12th Post ]

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Today was the day when I should be presenting my stamps of the 1922 Portrait series...but after many time spent with the classification of 246 stamps, I've still had some "loose ends"... there are stamps that don't fit in any of the categories listed in the catalogs or that just fit in one of those where the very expensive stamps "belong" ,so I decided to stop and wait more time before doing the post... instead,I've got some stamps from the 1932 "Washington Bicentennial" , an easier series to classify.....

I want to talk now about something that is troubling me for a long time... As You now I've got two blogs,this one and the other about stamp Designers... lately, I am spending much more time with this blog and I've been somehow careless with the other... in my opinion, the Research about stamp Designers it is much more important than the activity I have with this blog... the fact is that the posts seem to be increasingly larger and demanding much more work .... in order to give more attention to the stamp designers blog , I decided to decrease the size of the posts of 1967Stamps, to avoid having to simply finish it..! Yes, finish it.. because I don't have time for two such demanding blogs, and the other is as I said much more Important, not only for me , but I think for all those who collect stamps.... 

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This beautiful series commemorating the 200 years of the birth of George Washington, has  12 different designs , showing Washington in different parts of his life... the designs were made according to the works of 7 different Painters or Sculptors...to know :

1) after painting by Charles Wilson Peale

2) after bust by Jean-Antoine Houdon

3) after painting by Charles Wilson Peale

4) after painting by Gilbert Stuart

5) after painting by Charles Wilson Peale

6) after painting by Charles Peale Polk

7) after painting by Charles Wilson Peale

8) after painting by John Trumbull

9) after painting by John Trumbull

10) after crayon drawings of Charles Balthazar Julien Févret de Saint-Mémin

11)  after painting of William Williams

12) after painting by Gilbert Stuart

The series was printed using a Rotary Press Pinter, the stamps present the perforation 11x10.5 and were issued in 01/01/1932...

just look at the 6th stamp... it is very
different from the others.. not only the color, but the printing in general...it is also well centered.

There is not much to tell about this series...As in almost all the US stamps since the first issues of the 1850's, we must have in mind that a stamp with a good centering is always more valuable than others..I will present in the end , the stamp I think is the best centered I have among these ..there are 4 or 5 plate flaws and minor errors to now of , when we are dealing with this series... I will not present them because I don't have any stamp representative... 
however, I have a 3c stamp that has an error that is commonly know as "Broken top frame" ... it is an error that can appear to us with several different forms... the stamp I have has a "short top frame" and it matches one of the possible configurations of that error...

As You can see the top frame ends before it reaches the left external frame ,so there is a gap between them,, , they do not touch each other, as they should ....it is an error that don't give the stamp an extra boost in it's value , so it continues to value almost zero... the image presented at the right is an amplification of the desired part of the stamp....
I know that some of the stamps are not in the desired conditions, specially the 9c stamp.. I shouldn't post it  but it is the only one I've got an makes the series completed... 
Another aspect I wish to highlight is one that is often forgotten... we should always take a good look to the stamps we are classifying...if possible , in our modern days, always take scans of all the stamps, even the spares and the most insignificant and common ones... that is why I think it is important when we are studying a classic series , to have a large number of stamps of each value... the fact is we can be surprised by the appearance of unknown printing errors, unknown plate flaws , new shades, etc.... I am saying this by experience,because in the last days  I have taken scans of many stamps and I've been surprised two or three times... here is one example taken from one of the most studied series in the world..

it is a Franklin 1c from the 1922 series, that in a first view it is the most common of all stamps, nothing to distinguish it from the others, except the small plate flaw it presents... You can see it right from it's birth (1st Magnification ) above the white bottom frame below the "N" of "CENT" and reappearing between the "N" and the white ground of the label "Franklin".. it pop up again above the "i" of "Franklin"  and ( 2nd Magnification ) crosses some of the engraving lines to reappear again in Franklin's curled Hair..then it crosses some of the portrait background ( 3rd Magnification ) to find and damage the inner circular frame and  part of the "S" of "POSTAGE"  ( it then continues ,but I think this is enough...) ...
You can say, what do I gain with this stamp..??. I say ,nothing!!! I just have a stamp that is not so common after all !!!... I like discovering small stupid things like this one..It don't make me richer , but it sure makes me a Happier person !!!

AND THE BEST CENTERED STAMP IS : 

[ ...In my opinion ,we must let our senses talk...they will choose the best stamp... The top and bottom margins are OK,but  the right and left margins are not proportional .. This is the best stamp  but not a great stamp..!] [just to say that in my old SG catalog this is one of the first series where centering doesn't give an extra value bonus...]

well,this is the new format I want to introduce to this blog...more and smaller posts... 
 just talking about one or two series or something Philatelic that is troubling me.... I think it is the best I have to do...

SeeYou

Egypt [6th Post] Switzerland [2nd Post]

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EGYPT

Today I have 3 series from the 20's and 30's in Egypt...all of them are commemorative series of events taking place at Cairo, during those Years...this first series is commemorating the International Geographical Congress....the Vignette show us God Thoth writing King Fuad name in the walls...as You know, Kings and Pharaoh's were somehow related to the Gods in the Ancient Egyptian Mythology...

1925 "International Geographical Congress, Cairo" (3) [Litho] Sc(105,...,107)

The illustration of these stamps represents some workers occupied in some sort of Ancient Agriculture procedure...

1931 "14th Agricultural and Industrial Exhibition,Cairo" (3) [Litho] Sc(163,...,165)

As You can imagine , there is not much I can say about these stamps...the technical information is not much so I better reserve myself to the discription of the illustration... the stamp show us a medal commemorating the Abolition of Capitulations .

1937 "Abolition of the Capitulations at the Montreux conference" (3) [Litho] Sc(217,...,219)

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The "Mouchon" Background

This small "Mouchon"task I proposed to myself , is revealing itself very rewarding with much of information about the work of the French Engraver...Now I have discovered two more beautiful stamps from 1895 both work of Mouchon [design and engraving]...They are from Ethiopia and are without doubts very good stamps, one of them presenting the background we are searching for...

"Stone" Background

These are stamps from the first series of Ethiopia ; the first at the left, presenting us Menelik II and the other, at the right, the "Lion of Judah"... while in Menelik's stamp,we have a normal lined Vignette's background, in the other we have our "small stone's" background very much like the other stamps I have presented from 1895 and 1896...There is here nothing to difficult our comprehension : this is another of the stamps we are looking for.!..And the mystery became denser ...

One thing we can say for sure : this is the best period of his work, with some of the most beautiful and well accomplished stamps... 

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SWITZERLAND

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In this small section about Swiss stamps,I am going to focus on the so called "Pro-Juventute" series, that started to be issued in 1913 and continued until our days...Today I will show stamps from 6 series of the 30's , 40's,50's and 60's..All of the stamps belonging to these series, have an additional value to be paid by the buyer,and this value usually goes to Benevolent Societies.. We must note that until 1937 the additional value to pay doesn't appear in the stamp itself... 

These series doesn't have a similar number of stamps, but usually they have 4 or 5 stamps each...A particularity I want to highlight is that in each series, one or two stamps are engraved and [Recess] printed ,while the others are [Photo] Printed...

I often talk about the necessity of applying different  scan resolutions to [Recess] or [Photo] stamps...now , and before starting with the Pro-Juventute stamps,I want to show how this affects the final image...

[Photo 300ppp]

[Recess 600ppp]

[Photo 600ppp]

 [please click the pictures]

 Here we have 3 stamps, the left one is [Photo] printed, the right one is [Recess] printed ; now lets click on both stamps... You can see that the right image is larger and much more detailed than the left one ... in fact the right one is an image with the scan settings at 600ppp and the left image is taken with 300ppp...I only use the 600ppp because the stamp support it, without any distortion or lack of detail... but if we now click in the center image we will see a [Photo] stamp taken with 600ppp, and we have a larger image ,but the stamp printing simply doesn't support this resolution, so the image have distortions , it is blurred and with evident lack of detail ... 

Now that I talked about this small detail ,let's go and see some Swiss stamps...

The engraver of most of the 30's and 40's ad 50's  issues of Switzerland was Karl Bickel (this post about Karl Bickelis incomplete... some of the stamps here presented are missing there...) and he also was a prolific stamp designer , with the first stamps issued in 1923...

[Recess] Printed Stamps

[Photo]Printed Stamps

These stamps are the final work of 4 Stamp Designers...(1,3,4,5).some of the beautifully designed girls,are designed by Carl August Liner ; (2) was done by H. Zaugg and there is not much difference from the Liner girls...amazing works...(6,7,8,9,10,11)  representing some Alpine flowers and Insects are created by Hans Fisher ; (12,13,14,15,16,17,18,19) were designed by Werner Weiskonig...the last group of stamps (20,21,22,23,24) , representing animals,were done by  Hans Erni....

To end this post,,I just want to present another Swiss series,this time from 1914...it is a series about Swiss mountains,with emphasis in 3 mountain pics ... these stamps are beautifully engraved by J. Sprenger and A. Burkhard ; the Designs are from one of the most influential Swiss Artists from the early days of the Century...I am talking of Eugene Grasset, ,with a small number of Stamps Designed but Famous one's...

I must say that there is a small number of considerations to have in mind...the engraver A. Burkhard only engraved the 5F stamps,,but if You notice the name appearing in the bottom right of the stamp is J. Sprenger...this is one of the two signs we have to separate the original stamp and it's redrawn in a 1928/1931 series (the one i have is a Deep blue redrawn)[in the original series this 5F stamp is Ultramarine blue..]...in the original 1914 series , the 3F stamp present us a Deep blue Green variety ,much more valuable in it's MNH form...

1914/1918 "Swiss Mountains" (3) [Des (Eugene Grasset)][Engr (J. Springel)(A. Burkhard 5F)][Recess] Sc(182,206,184)

well,it is the end of another post...I think , that the next one will be ,finally,about the 1922 USA portrait series...I've got many stamps from this series  and the work is partially done...let's see what happens..!

SeeYou