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Curiosity Corner #156: Safety First (part 1)



 
 
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Old December 8th 04, 06:53 PM
Rodney
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Default Curiosity Corner #156: Safety First (part 1)

SAFETY FIRST
By ALAN STERCKX,

A Survey of Security Devices in Stamp Printing.
(Reprinted with acknowledgements to "Stamp Collecting.")
December 1977


From the very first days of postage stamps the authorities have shown
concern about their security and considerable ingenuity has been exercised
in the many protective measures taken. These fall into three main groups:
protection against forgery; protection against the re-use of used stamps; and
protection against the misuse of stamps.

Right from the start with the Penny Black and Twopenny Blue, a major
protection against forgery lay in the deliberately intricate design of the
stamps. In addition, the corner check letters were designed to afford further
protection. The principle was similar to that of numbering banknotes. A
forger would be likely to copy only one stamp and not the whole plate. In
theory, an increase in the occurrence of one particular set of check letters
would soon be noticed, but there is no record of this ever having happened.

Printed "watermarks"
Another basic protection lay in the use of special paper, particularly '
watermarked paper, which was supplied under security conditions to the
printer. One reason for this was to prevent the printer running off quantities
for his own benefit. Some cases have been known of the "watermark"
being applied by the printer after supply of the paper. Swiss stamps in 1862
had the watermark "impressed" (embossed), as did the stamps of the
Argentine in 1892, printed on locally-made paper. Later issues of the same
stamps in 1896 on German-made paper had a true watermark. Other
pseudo watermarks came from New Zealand and Sweden. In the case of
New Zealand the 1/2d., Id. and 2d. values issued in 1925 bore a facsimile
of the "NZ Star" watermark lithographed in blue or black on the back.
Swedish issues from 1886 to 1891 had a blue posthorn printed on the back.
In 1922, the Argentine also printed a mock watermark on some of its
stamps, but in this case it was on the face of the stamp. Finally the
Queensland 1d. and Id. stamps of 1895, printed on unwatermarked paper,
were given a blue burele band(an intricate network pattern) on the back.

Similar in nature to the printed "watermarks" are protective under-prints.
Typical of these is the "Winchester Security Paper," used for Venezuelan
issues from 1932 to 1939. I have seen one copy of this in which the
underprint is very clear but the design is an indistinguishable mass of
yellow. The early stamps of Denmark were printed on paper with a burele
underprint, while Estonian stamps often used paper with a coloured
network on it.

Salvador printed several issues on paper covered in brown dots and a later
set in 1935 had a buff under-print reading "EL SALVADOR" in columns
down the paper. In 1886 the State of Prussia produced a different type of
underprint. The high value 10 and 30 silbergroschen stamps for parcels
were printed in reverse on the back of very thin paper (goldbeaters' skin),
so that the design showed through on the front. Similarly in 1958 Persia
printed the name "IRAN" in reverse, and in black frame, on the backs of
her parcel stamps.

Coloured threads

A more curious paper was the Dickinson paper used for the first British
high values, the lOd. and Is. embossed octagonals of 1847-8, which had
two silk threads running through it, rather in the same manner as the metal
strip in a banknote. This type of paper, using coloured threads, was also
used by Switzerland between 1854 and 1862. The issue of 1855 was
particularly interesting because it used a different coloured thread for each
value. Bavarian stamps from 1849 to 1869 also used this type of paper.
Another special type of paper is that known as "granite paper/' that is paper
containing a quantity of coloured fibres. This paper found considerable use
at the end of the last century, particularly by Austria and Switzerland.

Sometimes, when forgers have succeeded in getting their wares on the
market the authorities have had to take special steps. An example is the
Argentine Republic when in 1921, it was discovered that forgeries of the5
centavos San Martin stamp were in circulation. A special printing was
made of the 5 centavos stamps in the design of the Pan-American Postal
Congress issue with the date added. Probably the strangest story on this
subject comes from Paraguay. In 1892 a portrait issue was prepared. Before
it was released the 10 centavos value (C. Barreiro) was overprinted "1492
12 de Octubre 1892" to commemorate the 400th anniversary of Columbus'
discovery of America. When, in January 1893, the stamp came to be issued
as a definite without the overprint, it was punched with a hole to prevent
the fraudulent application of the overprint.

Postmarking problems

With the forgery problem more or less buttoned up, the next thing to worry
the authorities was to ensure that a stamp was only used once. Their answer
was to cancel the stamp using a regular design and an ink that would defy
illicit removal. This very soon raised problems, for it was found that the red
ink needed to cancel visibly the black stamps was too easily removed.
However, the more permanent black ink did not show up on the stamp.
The answer was a complete swap- if the ink must be black, then make the
stamp red. At the same time the Twopenny Blue had white lines added to
the design to give a better contrast for the black ink. In order to make the
cancellation visible the stamps were given very wide margins to allow the
cancellation to show. It was for this reason, too, that the colour of the
Machin 4d. was changed from olive-sepia to red in 1969.

Another early measure to prevent the removal of cancellations gave rise to
that curious condition, blued paper, with its attendant "Ivory Heads." The
paper was treated with prussiate of potash - potassium ferricyanide - to
make this more difficult. The printing ink contained ferrous sulphate to
make it more permanent, and when this came into contact with the paper,
dampened for the printing process, a chemical reaction occurred,
precipitating Prussian blue.







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  #2  
Old December 8th 04, 07:03 PM
Rodney
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Default

BTW, before taken to task..... the poster acknowledges the dispute
on whether Columbus discovered just the West Indies, and Amerigo Vespucci
the continents.




 




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