It's been yet another interesting week, with lots of new discoveries for me. While working on a piece on the Swedish engraver Sven Ewert, I came across a sheetlet, made for a 1974 Swedish stamp exhibition, which included a number of test stamps.
Among those was a test stamp of a woman's head, engraved by Ewert. It was made by him after the Swedish Post bought a new printing press in 1937. The image was based on an original engraving by J. Deininger.
I managed to find a little lot of these stamps, in various colours. Though it is sometimes mentioned that the imperf edges on the sheet stamps are a variety, I'm not convinced that they are.
I've seen whole sheets perforated like that and I've actually not yet seen a sheet which is properly perforated. So they could well be coil or booklet perforations, with the imperf sides being the sides that are cut out of the sheets, to create coil strips or booklet panes. They are after all test stamps so why not experiment with the perforations as well?
The sheetlet also includes the Uppsala test stamps by Slania, which I've talked about before.
And there are also test stamps by Franzén, Jorpes and Jakus. I haven't really researched any of these yet, but Majvor Franzén, especially, is an intriguing engraver to look into. For instance, she is also known as M. Ewing, or so my faithful and knowledgeable correspondent from Sweden, Ann-Mari, informs me. And to contemplate matters even more, she has also been known as M. Matthews for a while, while married to a man of that name. I'm not sure, though, whether that was during her engraving career, so we'll leave all that for a futute chat!
:-)
Adrian
Among those was a test stamp of a woman's head, engraved by Ewert. It was made by him after the Swedish Post bought a new printing press in 1937. The image was based on an original engraving by J. Deininger.
I managed to find a little lot of these stamps, in various colours. Though it is sometimes mentioned that the imperf edges on the sheet stamps are a variety, I'm not convinced that they are.
I've seen whole sheets perforated like that and I've actually not yet seen a sheet which is properly perforated. So they could well be coil or booklet perforations, with the imperf sides being the sides that are cut out of the sheets, to create coil strips or booklet panes. They are after all test stamps so why not experiment with the perforations as well?
The sheetlet also includes the Uppsala test stamps by Slania, which I've talked about before.
And there are also test stamps by Franzén, Jorpes and Jakus. I haven't really researched any of these yet, but Majvor Franzén, especially, is an intriguing engraver to look into. For instance, she is also known as M. Ewing, or so my faithful and knowledgeable correspondent from Sweden, Ann-Mari, informs me. And to contemplate matters even more, she has also been known as M. Matthews for a while, while married to a man of that name. I'm not sure, though, whether that was during her engraving career, so we'll leave all that for a futute chat!
:-)
Adrian