The Stamp Club

Southland Times, Issue 20633, 3 November 1928, Page 23 (Supplement)

The Stamp Club

EARLY AUSTRALIAN ENGRAVERS

“SYDNEY VIEWS.” A collection of unique interest and considerable magnitude has just come on the market, comprising engravers’ proofs and trial printings of stamps of British possessions. Formed by Mr C. H. Mortimer, of Dorking, it is the most comphrehensive collection of the kind every brought together. Mr Mortimer had been gathering material for many years for a work on proofs of the line-engraved stamps of the British Empire from 1840 to 1900, and although he has now parted with his collection I trust the results of his great researches will yet be published. I am indebted to Mr Roberts, the purchaser of the collection, for the opportunity of making some notes on the rich collection of New South Wales proofs. The New South Wales stamps combine artistic with philatelic interest. We know little of the three local engravers who produced the famous “Sydney Views,” or, as they used to be called, “gold diggings.” They were Robert Clayton, John Carmichael and H. C. Jervis, all of Sydney, who engraved the Id, 2d, and 3d respectively, and treated the same design in different ways. Carmichael, who was a deaf mute, was the best engraver of the three and his 2d stamps, from the early state of the plate are beautifully executed and free from errors and omissions. When one remembere that each of the twenty-four stamps on the plate had to be engraved separately by hand his fidelity to detail is remarkable. Both Clayton and Jervis omitted various details from a number of stamps on their respective plates. But Carmichael’s fine work being on copper, wore very quickly, and the heavy burin of Jervis was employed in retouching it. Mr Mortimer’s collection contains beautiful contemporary proofs of the Id and 3d, including a very rare one of the latter in black, and the curious lithographed essay of the Id in bright red. This “litho” used to be regarded .is a forgery, but. is now known to be due to a proposal of Clayton’s to print the stamps by lithography; there is a pair of the essay in the Tapling collection. Valuable Records. There are two essays for 6d and Is stamps designed by the Postmaster-General, Mr James Raymond, himself, and engraved by Carmichael, but the artistic origin of the next issue, with the Queen’s head “laureated,” is attributed to Mr A. W. Manning, the Inspector of Stamps. Most of these were engraved on steel by Carmichael (Id, 2d, and 3d), each repeated separately by hand fifty timed to form the printing plate, and in the case of the bi-coloured registration stamp there were two steel plates bearing fifty heads and fifty frames respectively. As the proofs show, the finest, quality in the engraving for this series was Carmichael’s 6d stamp which he engraved on copper. Jervis also took a hand in engraving the laureates; he did the 2d and 8d on copper, and the retouching of Carmichael’s plates when they became worn. A clerk in the post-office department, Mr T. W. Levinge, /epared the original rough sketches for the “diadem” series, but they were redrawn in London by Mr Edward Corbould, and engraved by Mr William Humphreys. In the case of the larger design, the 5d green introduced in 1855 had the longest life of any stamp, being in use for over half a century. In these two diademed types the collection of die and plate proofs is very extensive, and most remarkable of all are the small trial plates, with impressions which have been subjected to a great variety of tests for colour and for protection against cleaning. Even the original mixings of the pigments for the ink are noted in a contemporary hand. There is also a rare die proof in black of the beautiful coin design by Corbould for the 5s stamp; this was engraved by Frederick Heath. It was, however, Mr Levinge’s idea to have the design circular, to make it readily distinguishable from the other values and to show the young Queen crowned, with sceptre, and the four stare of the Southern Cross, and a sprig of waratah, representing Australia.