Herbert Toni Schimek was born in Vienna, Austria, on 22
March 1905. He was a pupil of the famous engraver Alfred Cossmann, and started
engraving stamps in 1946.
One of his remarkable early engracvin gs was that for a 1947
stamp marking the Telegraph Centenary. It was a tribute to the French engraver Claude
Mellan (1598-1688), who innovated the art of copper engraving by developing the
real line engraving, which has been so crucial to stamp engraving. Mellan was
quite a virtuoso when it came to handling the burin and managed to create a
portrait of Christ from a single spiralling line. By making the line thicker or
thinner he created shadows and tonal varieties.
Schimek imitated this particular way of engraving on this
particular 1947 stamp. The globe on the stamp seems to be engraved with one
single spiralling line. However, the progressive dies show that he engraved the
ribbons around the globe first, thereby making it impossible to engrave the
globe in one single line.
You will find Herbert Toni Schimek's database HERE.
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