Engravers' tools

After I had received my first of Gregory Thomas Prosser's kiwi stamps from New Zealand, I looked at his other stuff, which is mainly if not solely from Canada.


One item I liked very much was the 1987 Canadian post offices set. It included a miniature sheet which is interesting in more than one way.


First of all it includes those beautiful post office stamps. But the illustrations on the sheet are great too, because what we see is a number of burins, the tools engravers use to cut their art into hard steel. In the bottom left corner we also see a photograph of a master die as engraved by Prosser. It is of the Toronto post office stamp which, of course, is also included in the miniature sheet.


Better still, this particular stamp is printed three times: once as a complete stamp, and two separate printings of either the litho part of the stamp or the recess-printed part of the stamp. So it's a perfect sheet to illustrate the work of our beloved stamp engravers!
:-)

See yous later
Adrian