With Scandinavia being one of the engravers heavens on earth, I always wonder why it doesn't feature more often in my dreams and on my want lists. Buying the 2014 yearbook from Sweden made me sort of expect I would right that wrong. But of course, Sweden, as so many other countries, is no longer the place to look for fully engraved stamps, as I found out.
Discarding quite a few non-engraved stamps immediately, I was left with a pile of stamps which were mainly printed in recess in combination with other printing processes, on which the recess part mainly supported the non-recess design. Better than nothing of course but these kinds of stamps are rather down my list of desirable items.
However, there were still enough items in the book to make me pleased that I got it. And they were all by Lars Sjööblom, who engraved the bulk of the Swedish stamps this year. One of the items which I did like, even though it was printed in a combination of processes, was the Europa sheetlet, which featured that quintessentially Swedish instrument: the nyckelharpa. Here at least the main design was engraved with the second process playing second fiddle.
Even better was the fully engraved Baltic hawker stamp.
But the two I liked best were the two berry stamps. Beautifully done, lovely tender colour scheme and overall real gems to put in my collection.
So hey, I'm chuffed to bits anyway.
:-)
See yous later
Adrian
Discarding quite a few non-engraved stamps immediately, I was left with a pile of stamps which were mainly printed in recess in combination with other printing processes, on which the recess part mainly supported the non-recess design. Better than nothing of course but these kinds of stamps are rather down my list of desirable items.
However, there were still enough items in the book to make me pleased that I got it. And they were all by Lars Sjööblom, who engraved the bulk of the Swedish stamps this year. One of the items which I did like, even though it was printed in a combination of processes, was the Europa sheetlet, which featured that quintessentially Swedish instrument: the nyckelharpa. Here at least the main design was engraved with the second process playing second fiddle.
Even better was the fully engraved Baltic hawker stamp.
But the two I liked best were the two berry stamps. Beautifully done, lovely tender colour scheme and overall real gems to put in my collection.
So hey, I'm chuffed to bits anyway.
:-)
See yous later
Adrian