BOOKS: Porträttgravyr på sedlar och frimärken

Does it get any better than engravers writing books about their own art? I'm pretty sure it doesn't and that is why you should really have a copy of Martin Mörck's book Porträtgravyr på sedlar och frimärken, or Portrait Engravings on Banknotes and Postage Stamps..

It is written in Swedish only, which is a bit of a drawback, unless you want to retype the whole thing and put it through Googletranslate or similar programme. But it's worth having nonetheless.


As the title suggests, Mörck discusses portrait engravings, mianly on banknotes but seeing that a good number of banknote engravers were stamp engravers as well, the information in the book is very interesting, ranging from biographical and printer information to rather technical discussions of the actual engravings.

The book discusses the work of engravers from some eight different major countries, among which Italy, Russia, the USA and Austria. And Sweden of course!


The reason why I love this book more than any other I have is that the layout is just magical.. Credited to Thomas Asplund of Mox, the book is a splendour of soft-coloured prints and blow-ups of stamps, banknotes and engraving details on non-gloss pages. It is really worth having just for browsing through it every now and then. In fact, I've always vowed that if I ever were to write a book, I would try and emulate this layout and imagine it would be an instant success because of that!
:-)

But seriously, try and get it and you won't be disappointed!

Porträtgravyr på sedlar och frimärken
Martin Mörck
Carlsson Bokförlag, Stockholm, 2000
ISBN 91 7203 972 8