Luxembourg stamps [3rd Post] Monaco stamps [4th Post]

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Luxembourg stamps from the beginning of the XX century are among those we do not want to fail on our collection...the beauty and all the glamour from the 1920's are indeed known marks of these stamps , with the presence of 3 Grand Duke's and Duchesses's...it is the time of the large definitive portrait series,but there is also space for some beautiful engraved pictorial series by Henry Cheffer,one the Greatest engravers from France...we will start in 1921 with two small pictorial series..

this time there is no optical illusion..! the first (left) stamp is a little smaller than the other two..the series represent motifs from Luxembourg Region [Vianden Castle, factory at Esch and the Bridge over Alzette]...The design is from Cheffer , but I don't have a confirmation of his work in the engraving, but I think it is also part of his large Artistic gift to our hobby...later in this post I will present again the 1Fr and 2 Fr stamps, but as part of a New colors series issued in 1924/1926...

1921 "Various Designs" (3) [Design (Henry Cheffer)][Recess] Sc(126,128,130)

 

Now we have a War Fund series, where the focus is really on Cheffer's work.. the design is very detailed and the engraving is of high quality, giving to the stamp a high degree of beauty ...it is in the end a very appealing series to the collector...these stamps appear again ,with a new surcharge ,later in time...

1921 "War Fund" (3) [Design (Henry Cheffer)][Engr (Henry Cheffer)][Recess] Sc(B1,...,B3)

 Now in 1923 I have a repetition here in the blog , but now in a MNH form...it is the famous Ecthernach stamp, that was presented in one of the first posts of this Blog.. the design and engraving are spectacular , but now are from two Austrian Artists , whose work was very wide spread in these years.. I'm talking about Rudolf Junk and Ferdinand Schirnbock...
The other stamp at right was used in the War fund series above , but the use of black color gives it a little extra ',.....!'
1923 "Ecthernach" (1) [Des (Rudolf Junk)][Engr (Ferdinand Schirnbock)][Recess] Sc(153)
1923 "View from Luxembourg" (1) [Des/Engr (Henry Cheffer)][Recess] Sc(152)

 
These are the designs from 1921 that were used now in 1924 in this New Color series , together with stamps from 1906 (Coats of arms) and other from 1921 with a portrait of Grand Duchess Charlotte... 


1924/1926 "New colors Series" (9) [Recess] Sc(127,129)

This right profile portrait of Grand Duchess Charlotte was the base for her 2nd definitive series,issued from 1926 to 1935...The first one , showing the Duchess in a front portrait ,was designed and engraved by our Henry Cheffer, but this 2nd series was work of ABNC..it is a very nice stamp , very well accomplished..high level of detail,good engraving, etc..The series is not completed, with 10 values still missing ; some of them are values already presented but with other colors...

1926/1935 "Grand Duchess Charlotte" (27) [Recess (ABNC)] Sc(159,160,162,164,163,165,169,170,171,172,175,174,176,177,178,182,185)

Now I have 3 small Charity series representing Young Members of the Royal Family...this first series show us the portrait of Prince Jean, the eldest son of Duchess Charlotte.. this is a child Welfare series, with the particularity of not presenting the tax label...in fact , any of these 3 series present it...the [Photo] printing is also something we have to consider here, because of the usual [Recess] printings..

1926 "Child Welfare Fund" (5) [Photo] Sc(B15,...,B19)

Now it is the time for Princess Elizabeth portrait appear on the Central vignette..the frame motifs and ornaments are very beautiful and despite the [photo] printing , these are also well accomplished stamps...

I have now to talk about the 'orange yellow' background cardboard that appeared in this last two images...the images had complete series of 5 stamps, and the usual small card it is not sufficiently long to contain them all.. so now and in future posts , when I need to present small complete series I will use this new card as background for the stamps...

1927 "Child Welfare Fund" (5) [Photo] Sc(B25,...,B29)

In general, these are identical to the other previous charity stamps, with some minor changes in the frames...I am of course,very glad to have these series in my collection , but if you ask me if I like them , I probably say no... perhaps a designed portrait would help to change my opinion, or engraved frames, keeping the photographic vignettes...well,that's what we have..let us keep it.!

1928 "Child welfare Fund" (5) [Photo] Sc(B30,...,B34)

And Now , " The Great Popular Edition of the Wonderful Voyages to the Known and Unknown Worlds of Jules Verne"

As you already know , just by viewing the pictures, these are stamps based in the life and work of the Great French Science Fiction & Adventure Writer Jules Verne...there is one stamp for each one of these 11 famous literary works of the Author...of course, the Monaco Post Office Department choose this group of adventures but there are many more and almost all could be presented here and be again immortalized in these beautiful stamps...10 of the 11 stamps are for common postage service, and the last and highest value (200Fr) is a Air Mail stamp..

 I was talking for some time of acquiring this series and a few days ago I stumble in a 1887 2nd edition of the Book "The 1860 Eclipse" ,where I found that beautiful Introduction phrase that I used before showing the stamps... well, I bought the book and an hour later I was buying this series ...

To turn all this joyful picture into a even better one , the presence of some French engravers turn out to be the 'cherry at the top of the cake'.!..we have Gandon, Cheffer, Dufresne,Mazelin,Serres, Busiere,Cotett,Piel, Miermont  and Andre Fréres...The stamp Designer is a very important Monaco Artist called Bernard Minne,with most of his work in the Poster business...well , it is a beautiful series and one of the best ways I can think of ending this post...

1955 "50th Death Anniversary of Jules Verne" (11) [Des (Bernard Minne)][Engr (Henry Cheffer 25F)(Pierre Gandon 2F,8F)(Charles Mazelin 15F)(Robert Cotett 10F)(Andre Fréres 200F)(Raoul Serres 5F)(Jules Piel 3F)(Charles-Paul Dufresne 1F)(Louis Busiere 30F)(Jean Miermont 6F)][Recess] Sc(300,...,349,C45)

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Luxembourg stamps [2nd Post]

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As I promised in the end of the last post, here we have some "oldies" from Luxembourg...I have these stamps for some time, but because they are very famous stamps and due to the fact that I already have some of them in the collection, I  choose to show in previous posts other stamps that in my opinion are less known...but this is the time to show them and I'm going to start in 1891 with the stamps from the Grand Duke Adolf ....

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The Grand Duke William III died without male heirs, so the Duke of Nassau become Grand Duke of Luxembourg in 1890 , ruling as Grand Duke Adolf. the design of these stamps was made by Michel Engels, a notorious Luxembourg painter and  Illustrator... The complete set has 10 stamps and I've got 7 of them .. the only new stamp in the collection is the 12.5c... I'll keep the other 4 because this series has a lot of differences in the colors with numerous different shades... for example , I will show some of the others (old scans with less detail...) [P2] 

In this series we could find 3 different perforations (12.5, 11, 11.5 x 11) and I remember the existence of a parallel series overprinted (OFFICIEL) , a common fact to many of the future issues of the 20's and 30's...

1891 "Grand Duke Adolf" (10) [Des (Michel Engels)][Recess] Sc(60,61,62,63,67)

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Some stamps of other series representing Grand Duke Adolf ,but now in a right profile...the series has 5 stamps and exist also in the Overprinted OFFICIEL form... I choose to present two stamps of 2c , just to highlight again the existence of many shade variations...(the 2nd 2c stamp is obviously still "on paper" and need a treatment before being stocked... I  present also stamps of the same values already in the collection (the complete series) to better see the shades subject (P4)

1895 "Grand Duke Adolf" (5) [Des (Knopp)][Engr (Eugene Mouchon)][Typo] Sc(70,71,71,73)

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I remember that in a previous post and talking about the King Carlos I stamps from Portugal (P5) ,I said that Eugene Mouchon , the Designer and Engraver of the stamp picked the inspiration for the Central Background in the sidewalks of Lisbon beautifully made by stones side by side, sometimes performing beautiful and spectacular designs in black and white stones...well , I was not sure of nothing of this and nobody could be, but now things are getting somehow more clear....the series above representing Grand Duke Adolf (P3 and P4) was also Engraved by Mouchon, but , and here We have a problem , catalogs say that it was designed by Knopp.. the problem is that the same Central background exists..!! I raised again these thoughts , because the Portuguese series of King Carlos I was issued in Nov 1895 and the one of Luxembourg in May 1895...I'm not an expert in the King Carlos I series ,despite the fact  that I am Portuguese, but something I think we can conclude is that all the "Lisbon Sidewalk" idea should be just some kind of Nationalist feeling....but new questions were raised : 1) was really Knopp the designer of the Luxembourg series?? 2) or it was Mouchon himself?? 3) if Knopp was the designer, then Mouchon used his idea for the Portuguese Design, something that I think it is very unlikely , because a World collector of those days (and I think that there were many more than today...) would notice the resemblance between the two issues of the same year... It would be almost a scandal..!!! I will have to ask an expert opinion to someone in Luxembourg... 

if you , the viewer, want to comment or to bring Your own opinion, please do... I will update this post with any thoughts or facts that could bring some clarity to these hazy situation... 

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These are stamps from the Grand Duke William IV that ruled from 1905 to 1912...it is a very nice stamp, with very good design of Pierre Blanc  and good engraving...I don't have many spare stamps from this series, but I think that diversity with color shades is also and again a point to have in mind...the series was issued in 1906 and has also an overprinted OFFICIEL series...

1906 "Grand Duke William IV" (12) [Des (Pierre Blanc)][Recess] Sc(82,83,85,86,87,88,89,91)

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(P7) show us 13 from the 15 stamps of the original series of 1914 representing Grand Duchess Marie Adelaide... Her father, the Grand Duke William IV had no male heir , so Marie Adelaide was named Grand Duchess in 1912... However times were complicated and there were Dark Skies all over Europe announcing WWI... at the end of the war Marie Adelaide suffers the price of having opinions Pró Germany during the Invasion , and the pressure of the Parliament and People of Luxembourg , led her to resign to her Sister Charlotte in 1919... This is a beautiful and impressive stamp, one more Art work of  Koloman Moser , one of the Art Nouveau Masters...it is in fact a joint effort of two extraordinary Artists, that worked together for many years.. Moser and the engraver Ferdinand Schirnbock...(remember that the posts in my other blog only show stamps that effectively have been designed by the Artist, because in the case of Schirnbock, he had many other stamps where he worked only as Engraver...).

1914 "Grand Duchess Marie Adelaide" (15) [Des (Koloman Moser)][Engr (Ferdinand Schirnbock)][Recess] Sc(97,98,99,101,102,103,104,105,106,107,109,110,111)

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P8 and P9 show us the 18 stamps series representing Grand Duchess Charlotte's Portrait.. All the design and engraving was done by the Great French Artist Henry Cheffer  (You are now being redirected to a post of my other Blog about Henry Cheffer , but despite the fact that it isn't stated there , the post is still incomplete...).. This lot had also some stamps of the "OFFICIEL" Series, but I prefer to show them in another future post...I have to say now that Sc catalog present this series as having 18 stamps, but if you look to the SG catalog You will see that in fact we have 2 distinct series :  the original 1921/1922 series with 12 stamps(P8) and a "New Colors" series of 6 stamps issued from 1924 to 1926 (P9).. in the end the result is the same because Sc present us also different dates of issue for the 6 stamps of the SG 2nd series...This fact is most common because SG is a more detailed catalog than my Sc World that obviously represent a more relaxed and General approach... 
Charlotte ruled over Luxembourg from 1919 to 1964 and received the Power from his older sister Marie Adelaide...

1921/1926 "Grand duchess Charlotte" (18) [Des (Henry Cheffer)][Engr (Henry Cheffer)][Recess] Sc(131,...,148)

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before ending this brief post , I like to show a small detail in the beautiful 25c Ultramarine blue stamp of the Grand Duchess Marie Adelaide series... it is a small detail that will have ,I'm sure, no significance , but there isn't any remark in my catalogs about it and I cannot pass along without mention it...

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(P10) show us the stamp and (P11) the detail I was talking about... a small line of the surrounding blue was printed inside the white number five...I think that it is difficult to be a occasional printing "mistake", that only appear in a stamp or two, so in my opinion more advanced studies about this stamp should have references to this detail...

well it is done..

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Ecthernach

Echternach (Luxembourgish: Iechternach) is a commune with city status in the canton of Echternach, which is part of the district of Grevenmacher, in eastern Luxembourg. Echternach lies near the border with Germany, and is the oldest town (current population 4,610) in Luxembourg.
It grew around the walls of the Abbey of Echternach, which was founded in 698 by St. Willibrord, an English monk from Ripon, Northumbria (in present-dayNorth Yorkshire, England), who became the first bishop of Utrecht and worked to Christianize the Frisians. As bishop, he was the Echternach monastery's abbot until his death in 739. It is in his honour that the dancing procession takes place annually on Whit Tuesday.(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Echternach )

"The Wolfsschlucht near Echternach" : Series of 1 stamp , issued from 1923 to 1934.
This particular stamp was issued in 1934 , because it has perforation 12.5(only issued in 1934) ... all other issues had perforation 11.5
SG(226)

"Consecration of St. Willibrord Basilica at Echternach" : Series of 2 from 18/09/1953 ; perforation 13 x 13.5
SG(569,570)

Begining today, I will start to show the last classified items ... Today I have a pair of Russian stamps 1958 a 1936 Russia and 5 General Franco stamps.



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