Stamp Collecting

Hutt News, Volume 12, Issue 40, 29 March 1939, Page 2

Stamp Collecting

(By "Aorangi.")

The Anatomy ol" a Postage Stamp. ;A good many things go to the making of a postage stamp. There is the paper on which it is printed; the design, by which we, usually mean the pictorial part of the stamp; the inscription or lettering and figures of value; the ink, with which the design is printed, varying in colour, the gum, and the queans of separation, for example, tae method of facilitating the severance of a stamp from its fellows, by either perforation or roulettiilg. The paper may further be examined to its watermark, texture, and surfacing, and sometimes colour. The main classes of paper with which the collector should be familiar are called wove and laid. J. wove paper has an even texture with out any particular distinguishing feature, and a very large proportion of the existing postage stamps are printed on papers belonging to this class. Russia provides any owner of a general collection with examples of stamps on both types of paper. Other classes of paper sometimes met with include ; pelure paper, the official definition of which is "a very thin semi-transparent paper, about the thickness of a tissue paper, but much harder and tougher." This term is, however, often misused by philatelic writers, being applied to any very thin paper, even when it is not tough and hard. Granite paper lias tiny specks of coloured fibre in it, which can usually be seen with the naked eye. Some quite common stamps of Switzerland, the issue of. 1882-98, furnished a good example of this paper, though they were also printed on wove paper. In the paper on which some stamps are printed there is a watermark. This consists • of a device formed in the texture of the paper itself, and can usually be seen when the stamp is held up to the light. If the watermark cannot be seen this way it will probably I show up when the stamp is placed face downwards on the black polished surface of a watermark detector, the final resort being to pour a little benzine over the stamp. Watermarks are often arranged so that one device falls on each stamp in a sheet (single watermarks), though there are cases where they are placed close together so that parts of more than one watermark falls on each stamp (multiple watermarks). There have also been instances where paper prepared for printing sheets of a certain size of a stamp has been used for stamps larger or smaller, in which case the watermark will fall irregularly. There are often watermarks, usijaly consisting of inscriptions, on the marginal paper surrounding the sheets of stamps (marginal watermarks). The surface of the paper is often especially prepared, sometimes with the object of getting a good surface on which to print, but often to prevent postmarks being cleaned from used stamps, so that they may be" used again. Chalksurfaced or coated paper belongs to the latter class, as any attempt at cleaning brings away the preparation with which the paper is coated, at once altering the appearance of the stamp. • A test for chalk-surfaced (or "chalky") paper, which lias been widely used for printing modern British Colonial stamps, is to touch slightly the surface of the, stamp j with the edge of a genuine silveT j coin. If this makes a mark like a pencil mark, the stamp is printed on this special paper. . (To be continued.)