COLLECTORS' RUSH

Evening Post, Volume CXVIII, Issue 89, 12 October 1934, Page 4

COLLECTORS' RUSH

NEW BRITISH STAMPS

POINTS TO LOOK FOR

Stamp collectors gave Post Office counters a busy time investigating the philatelic possibilities of the new 144 stamps, when they were put on sale for the first time all over the country, writes F. .J. Melville in the "Daily Telegraph:" Most of them were tryins to ■'get blocks from the lower lett corners of the sheets, showing what is known as the "control."' The control, is of course,! a new one, and is This control "is only attached to stamps in the .sheet, margins to assist in keeping the accounts between printing > contractor and the Post ..Office Stores Department. The "34" denotes the year of manufacture, 1934, and the. letter is' changed with each accounting or, boplceeping; .period, generally hali,yearly. ■•'"; ' „ Thcro have long been collectors oi these ccmtrols, which were introduced just fifty years ago, in 1884. But the new stamps are going to 'provide collectors with much moro excitement than hitherto. In addition to the control, there is a small number on the left margin adjoining tho first stamp on the bottom of tho sheet. This number is engraved on the cylinder, for these new stamps are printed by rotary photogravure, and every cylinder will have its distinctive number. The first stamps I bought were from cylinder 54, so there are going to be many of these cylinder numbers. A FREAK TO LOOK FOR. . A freak to look for is the 1-Jd cylinder 13. The number has been engraved twice, but the- first time tho figures wcro reversed "31," and although partly erased, you can still sco part of the .31 under the.bold figure 13. There ,will.be plenty of minor varieties to hunt for; more than have been discoverable'in English stamps for many years'. 'iThe colour is rich and appears uniform; it is a murrey brown. The variations will be found- in the printed design, which has tho grain or screen of,the photogravure process. v Nearly the whole of the printed surface hag a ground of fine square- dots, something .like the dots of a half-tone newspaper illustration, except that the latter are round. In many of the new stamps I have examined this "screen" extends over the bottom outline of the stamp design, leaving in some cases merely a ragged edge, but in others producing a shadow outline below the proper outline. This extra (and unintentional) baseline produces; the illusion of a "reentry" (in steel-plate engraving), but there can be no question of a re-entry here, it is simply an effect created by tho insufficient trimming away of the "screen" at the bottom. Nevertheless, it is an"outer-line" variety, which stamp. collectors will want. I have noted also some "hair-line" varieties with; thin lines of colour running horizontally across tho stamps.

It is almost inevitable that with a screen and.an etching process involved in their production there "will be an infinite number of small variations, which will provide collectors with amusement if not profit. The technical ideal for securitj' against forgery . is that every gonuino stamp should be identical.1 If.'the genuine stamps differ among themselves it would be extremely difficult to prove any close copy to bo a forgery. The general design of the "dolphins" frame, originally drawn by the late Sir Bertram Mackennal, has been «losely copied for the now lid stamp, and for the -Jd green,, which is not yet issued. For the Id red stamp, the Mackennal "medallion" frame has been substantially altered, and not for thu better.