What Philately Teaches: A Lecture Delivered before the Section on Philately of the Brooklyn Institute of Arts and Sciences, February 24, 1899Luff, John N. (John Nicholas)
History
What Philately Teaches: A Lecture Delivered before the Section on Philately of the Brooklyn Institute of Arts and Sciences, February 24, 1899
Luff, John N. (John Nicholas)
Stamp collecting
Another interesting stamp was issued in the island of Trinidad in 1855.
In this case, the stone, after the designs had been placed upon it, was
very deeply bitten with acid, so that it might properly be called etched
and the impressions from it be said to be typographed from stone. This
stone was used in 1855, 1858 and 1860. Owing to its friable nature and
want of care the stone deteriorated, so that the last impressions from
it are little better than blurs.
Having considered the design and the methods of preparing plates and
printing stamps the next thing to attract our attention is the paper. We
here show you some photographs of paper. These were not taken by
reflected light but by transmitting light through the paper, so that we
have the fibre and structure of it.
[Illustration: Paper]
The two varieties of paper most used for stamps are termed wove and
laid. Wove paper has an even texture suggestive of cloth. Like cloth it
may show no grain when held to the light or it may have the appearance
of interwoven threads. The paper ordinarily used for books and
newspapers is wove. There is a very thin, tough wove paper, much like
that familiarly known as "onion-skin," which is called pelure by
philatelists. On a few occasions a wove paper, which is nearly as thick
as card board, has been used for stamps.
[Illustration: Paper]
Laid paper shows alternate light and dark lines, parallel and close
together. These lines are called _vergures_. There are usually other
lines, an inch or more apart, crossing the _vergures_ at right angles.
Ribbed paper has much the appearance of a fine closely laid paper. It
is, however, a wove paper with a corrugated surface. In oriental
countries, especially Japan, a peculiar, tough, cottony paper is
produced. It is sometimes wove and sometimes laid, usually thin and hard
to tear. I believe this is made from rice straw. Paper which has thin
lines about the distance apart of the ruled lines in writing paper is
called _batonne_, from the French _baton_, a stick or rule. If the
paper between the _batons_ is wove, it is called wove batonne. If the
space is filled with fine laid lines, it is called laid batonne.
_Quadrille_ paper has laid lines which form small squares. When these
lines form rectangles, it is called oblong quadrille.
[Illustration: Paper]
[Illustration: Paper]
[Illustration: Paper]
Some of the stamps of Mexico were printed on paper ruled with blue
lines. This was merely ordinary foolscap paper. Many of the early stamps
of Russia were on a paper having the surface coated with a soluble
enamel. This not only gave a very fine impression but, on an attempt to
clean a cancelled stamp, the enamel would wash off, carrying the design
with it.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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