CZECHO-SLOVAK STAMPS

Evening Post, Volume CIX, Issue 119, 23 May 1925, Page 16

CZECHO-SLOVAK STAMPS

PORTRAIT OF A GREAT STATESMAN.

The great statesman and President of Czechoslovakia, celebrated his 75th birthday anniversary on 7th March, and seven new" stamps were issued in Prague bearing his portrait (writes Fred J. Melville in the "Daily Telegraph"). Although Dr. Masaryk does not figure in tho new "Who's Who in Philately," he is a stamp collector, and has taken a lively interest in philatelic matters in a progressive country where- they are so advanced as to have introduced philately in tho regular curriculum of the secondary schools.

The new stamps bear a portrait of the veteran after a painting by Professor Max Swabinsky within a rectangular frame ornamented with foliage at the sides. The portrait and general design follow closely the set of four stamps issued on 28th October, 1923, to mark the anniversary of the founding of the Republic, but instead of having the dates ■'1918-1923" across the label between the figures of value, the new stamps bear the words "haleru" (heller) or "korun" (crowns). The set of seven presents an interesting comparison between two processes, for the haleru values- are produced by photogravure, while the korun -values are evidently from intaglio dies and plates, but arc so flat as to suggest' they have- been printed by the offset method from the jntuglio plates. Iv the matter of effective portraiture the photogravure stamps are more pleasing than the engraved portraits, but tho engraving as it appears on • the korun values is not equal to the work of British and American engravers, and the printing is not good.

The stamps are printed in sheets of 100 on paper watermarked with linden leaves, and are perforated by a singleline machine gauging 13£. The values and colours are: 40 haleru, orangebrown; 50 haleru, yellow-green: 60 haleru, purple; 1 korun, carmine; 2 korun, bine; 3 korun, sepia; and 5 korun, bluegreen.

This is not the firefc time Czecho-Slo-vakia haa u^ed photogravure for her Stamps, for in 1919 several values of tne Independence cpnuiiemoratiQu set, with the beautiful vignette of a mothev and child, by Professor J. Obrovsky, were printed in liko manner. So were the stamps of 1920, in Professor Mucha's design, which caused snch a t'qvoi'e," as it depicted a Caliitine Hussite', and the CathpUc glavaks raised vigorqus and elective .protests. These were "printed by a photogravure process described as Neotype. " "