PRINTING STAMPS

Hokitika Guardian, 17 November 1931, Page 6

PRINTING STAMPS

A CONTINUOUS JOB. HOW IT IS DONE. WELLINGTON, November 15. Something over two hundred million postage stamps are required each year to satisfy the wants of the letter-writ-ing public of the Doiliinion. It sounds a tall enough order to keep the stamp printing presses in the Government Printing Office fairly and so it is. Nearly all day and; nearly every day postage stamps are being turned out by the thousand, for the practice which has prevailed in the Dominion for some time past is to ddrall the st'Amp,printing locally, although the original. I plates from which they are printed are. made by one or other of the specialising firms at Home. This will be the case with the new pictorial set; the printing will be done in Wellington j from plates made in London. Naturally the stamps most in demand are those of the lower values, rang-, ing from one halfpenny to three pence, the twopenny one. in these days, of additional • postal 'fees being used in far greater numbers than any other. Hence these are printed in the most expeditious manner possible., iHtrarequirements for artistic purposes being left to the stamps of higher values, for which the demand is not nearlv so great, and over the production of which more time can legitimately be spent. The stamps up to and including the threepenny value afe what is known as sufaee printed. Steel engraved dies are made at in plates containing 240 stamps, these plates are printed off ongummed papA or sheet after sheet as-L required. The stamps of higher denomin-; ations are printed by .a more expensive and slower process, hut the finished, job is a better one. To see this it is only necessary to compare a twopenny stamp with, say, a shilling one. The difference is most marked in artistic finish and appearance. These higher value stamps are printed from smaller recess engraved plates, and when the printing is in two colours, as it is sometimes, the cost and trouble of printing are materially increased. ADDING THE PERFORATIONS

When sheets of stamps have been printed, whatever the denomination or process, there are no perforations between the individual stamps. These are made later by a special machine; in which a row of, sharp-pointed pins works gradually from row to row between the stamps. When stamps were first issued in New Zealand, such things as perforations were unknown. There were no officially perforated stamps, scissors being used to divide one stamp from another as required. Hence the uneven margins often found on old unperforated stamps. Scissors wore even used on one occasion to divide a shilling stamp diagonally in order to make up for the shortage of sixpenny stamps, half the .shilling stamp being used as a sixpenny one. This was at Dunedin in 1858, and such bisected stamps are amongst 'the philatelic rarities of the present day. Occasionally a row, or couple of rows of perforations on a sheet of modern stamps have been omitted by accident, and this defect has been overlooked and the sheet allowed to go out. This is another, but less fare, prize for which collectors search and pay enhanced prices, if they are lucky enough to have the wherewithal.,

A CAREFUL CHECK. But, as matter of fact, it is very seldom that anything like this escapes notice, for every -sheet of stamps is carefully scrutinised several times for defects. Damaged stamps are replaced by others neatly gummed in their place.

Paper specially watermarked with a star and the letters N.Z., as every philatelist knows, is supplied for the printing of the Dominion’s postage ■stamps. Each blank .sheet as it is supplied to the office is numbered and checked and so is every sheet that comes out of the. presses as stamps. Every bit of paper, has to he strictly accounted for, for every stamp represents money, even if it is only a- halfpenny

Besides adhesive postage stamps, the stamp-printing department has machines for the making of postcards, letter-cards, embossed envelopes, embossed stamps for cheques and similar documents, postal note®, money orders and such-like. The making of these entails the use of a number of neat and ingenious machines, and here again there is the .same careful scrutiny and counting. In addition to the stamps for use in the Dominion, the stamp department of the Government Printing Office also prints the pictorial stamps used in the Islands.