NEW SERIES OF STAMPS

Hokitika Guardian, 21 March 1932, Page 8

NEW SERIES OF STAMPS

DESIGN CRITICISED

VIEWS OF FORMER PRINTER

The opinion that the new design for stamps is poor advertisement for New Zealand is expressed by Mr J. Burns, who- for over twenty years was Government Printer, He states that the very first consideration to be decided by the board in the selection of stamp designs is by what process the stamps are to be produced, that is, by recess (or intaglio) or by surface printing. The selection made does not, in his opinion, compare with the old pictorial set, and he believes this opinion is widely held.' 1

Some years ago, he says, denominations from )d to Is, and also 2s and 5s stamps, were printed by the intaglio process, but because the surface printing was quicker and less expensive and infinitely better intaglio process was given up for these stamps, and from that point the good name of the Dominion in the philatelic world began to suffer. It was impossible for an artist to produce a fine design working on sandpaper, and it was equally impossible for a printer to put life and expression into a design with a blank face.

“The intaglio process is infinitely superior to any other process for the production of stamps,” Mr Burns adds. “Yet we find at least onehalf of the accepted designs are not up to intaglio standard and not worthy of being printed by this process. As an advertising agency, most of them fail lamentably. The best designs should be of. those stamps which are most freely used, both in and beyond the Dominion.”

.Uniformity of colour in stamp printing was one of the safest means of defeating forgery, said Mr Burns. It was to he' regretted that the last say in, the adoption of colour was delegated to officers of the Post and Telegraph Department, who, in his opinion, could not be expertly qualified for the job. “I do not know' whether the Government lias approved of the set as a whole,” said Mr Burns, “but I hope not, and I suggest that further consideration should be given to rejected designs, or, as an alternative, that fresh designs should be called for. There has, tooy’been too much repetition of subject matter and something more original and more historical would he welcome..”