The watermarks of Poland - 1958-1963

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The watermarks of Poland - 1958-1963

Mensaje por Rein »

Watermarks - a state of exception

Over the whole wide world philatelists meet problems with the watermarks of their postage stamps. Not surprisingly as usually the watermarks are hardly visible. When a watermark is relatively simple and apart from that symmetrical it will be not so difficult to establish the relative position of the watermark, but when the design is complicated and therefor a-symmetrical - the philatelists have a big problem!

Polish stamps of the 1958-1963 period have been a definite headache for Polish philatelists from the beginning. A problem that could not be overcome! Why?? The answer is simple!

We have to know something theoretical about paper - not just whether paper can be thin or thick or translucent or opaque. Just the basics would be alright to know. even though in Polish philatelic literature there had been several publications on watermarks of Polish postage stamps, I hadn‘t met any theoretical approach anywhere.

A few little known properties of paper.

Some notions about paper a well known in philately like thickness, luminescence, watermarks but are not described and explained till the end in full! Some notions are not known at all even though we don‘t need much more that good eyes, a magnifying glass , a UV-lamp, a ruler...

In short, without going into much details, paper is manufactured in a paper mill on a papermaking machine. The still wet pulp is transported along a long web with tiny holes - a sieve - (in German a Langsieb) - through which it looses most of the water of the pulp and gradually the pulp is transformed into a papermass. After passing the long web a complex system of cylinders will eventually flatten the paper-reel, may add a coating etc.

Although it is never meant to be, the sieve leaves an imprint on the bottom of the paper. The imprint will reflect the structure of the sieve, in general how the sieve had been woven! As far as could be established the number of possible structures was very small until the 1970-ies - to be more precise - 2 in total!

The above mentioned cylinders at the end of the line may also leave some imprint but never in such a way the sieve has. And if they have it will be on the top side of the paper not on the bottom side!

What will leave an imprijnt on the top side of the paper is what is meant to be done by a specially affixed design on the dandy-roll [egoutteur in French] but a lot earlier as the paper reel is supposed to be still wet enough - the watermark.

Thus the imprints of the dandy-roll [watermarks] and the sieve are on opposite sides of the paper-reel!

What has this all got to do with the problems the philatelists meet when studying watermarks? What a philatelist studying watermarks has to do in the following order:

1. Establish the direction of the paper, the way the papermass was passing the long sieve, by looking carefully at the little threads in the paper. The threads have a tendency to flow - while that was still possible in the wet pulp - in a particular preferential direction. Under the influence of heat or moisture the threads will shrink more in thickness than in length and thus the paper - in our case the stamp - will curl a bit and may form a small cylinder with the axis parallel to the direction of paper.

During further research always keep the stamp in a position that the direction of paper is vertical!

Imagen

2. Establish which side of the stamp is the top side of the paper i.e. the felt side where the watermark is. The felt side is usually a lot smoother!

3 Establish the bottom side of the paper - the sieve side - which is usually a lot rougher, the threads are well visible and longish.

In case of coated paper or gummed it will not be that easy to establish which side is which! In the case of the Polish stamps involved we are only dealing with uncoated paper!

4. The structure of the sieve can be - atl east until the 1970-ies - divided nto 2 groups. This can be seen in stamps of all nations. Machine-made paper manufacturerd in the years 1860-1938 always have the same structure. The structure is the equivalent of the linen-binding


x-x-x-x-x-x-x
-x-x-x-x-x-x-
x-x-x-x-x-x-x
-x-x-x-x-x-x-
x-x-x-x-x-x-x
-x-x-x-x-x-x-

Where the „x“ represents the horizontal threads of the web being on top of the vertical threads when crossing, and the “-“ viceversa.

Around 1938 the paper mills started to use a sieve with a slightly more complicated askew binding:

-x--x--x--x--
x--x--x--x--x
--x--x--x--x-
-x--x--x--x--
x--x--x--x--x
--x--x--x--x-
-x--x--x--x--

and its mirror:

-x--x--x--x
--x--x--x--x
x--x--x--x--
-x--x--x--x-
--x--x--x--x
x--x--x--x--
-x--x--x--x-

In the early 1970-ies a completely different kind of bindings were devised for the making of the sieves. I will not deal with this matter now as it is not relevant for the watermarked Polish stamps!

Once more, we need to establish - and this is not always easy - but it can be done:
- the direction of paper (vezelrichting, loop-richting [NL], Faserrichtung, Laufrichtung [D])
- which side is the top or felt side and with is the sieve (or wire) side (zeefzijde [NL], Siebseite [D])
- occasionally what the structure of the sieve or wire looks like - no matter whether there is a watermark or not.

to be continued....
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Re: The watermarks of Poland - 1958-1963

Mensaje por Rein »

The Polish postage stamps of the period 1958-1963 were printed in photogravure - on the sheet-fed „Palatia“ press or in offset-litho - on a Roland press - and the recess printed stamps on the Swiss-originated reel-fed rotary WIFAG (occasionally in combination with photogravure or typography).

Every printer knows that with a sheet-fed press the direction of printing has to be perpendicular to the direction of paper. Otherwise the result will not be good or there will interruptions in the printing process. And it is wellknown that the Polish State Security Printer (PWPW = Państwowa Wytwórnia Papierów Wartościowych) is not the round-the-corner printing house....

In the case of reel-fed presses, both directions can only be parallel.

And also every printer knows that the wire side of the paper has a worse quality and thus wants to use the felt side. You can usually tell the wire side of the paper by the relatively thick threads whereas the felt side is rather smooth and no thick threads to be seen.

By studying the postage stamps the characteristics of the paper - direction, felt side and wire side - have to be established in order to go on. Like trying to study the watermarks of a certain country.

An a-symmetrical watermark may have - theoretically speaking - 8 different positions. Although just by looking at the design you may think that 4 is enough - upright, upsidedown, facing left, facing right - but then by reverting the paper i.e. the top side becomes the gummed side and the bottom side becomes the printed side, we have an extra 4 different positions , what makes 8 all together. It is obvious that the latter 4 aren‘t supposed to be considering the bad printing result it may give. Still it happens and even more often when coated paper is involved. But I wasn‘t going to enter that subject :)

I can not repeat it often enough: in order to study the watermarks you first have to establish the direction of paper and have the threads in a vertical position! With the Polish postage stamps involved it helps to know that the mouthpiece of the posthorn [that is what the watermark looks like!] should always be at the bottom, pointing downwards and be situated either on the left or on the right. The opening of the horn then is either facing to the right or to the left.

Imagen

What we see here is - in the Polish philatelic tradition - watermark position no 5.

Imagen

Imagen

The second matter - the more difficult part of our study - is to establish what is the felt side. When having a good look at the picture of the posthorn you can even see the vertical rhomboids.

Having unused, mint stamps with the original gum , it may seem not worthwile removing the gum. But with used stamps or CTO‘s it is better to remove the gum to establish whether the back side of the stamp is the felt side or the wire side. As mentioned before the felt side will be rather smooth, the wire side will be somewhat rough. The longer, thicker threads are usually on the wire side of the stamp-paper.

If we study stamps that are known to have positions 1, 2 and 3, the direction of paper can only be vertical (with pos. 1, 3, 5 and 7) or horizontal (with pos. 2, 4, 6 and 8).

In our just described case position 2 will be less likely to exist and positions 1 and 3 are more likely. However position 2 still may be a possibility considering a square printing sheet getting mislaid.

Stamps known to have positions 1,3, 5, and 7 pose us with another problem. For the printers it is not so much a problem as to whether a sheet or reel has been fed upsidedown (1 or 3) or (5 or 7), but a reverted sheet of paper might give a worse result with the wire side getting printed. If the positions 1 and 3 - as watched from the back of the stamp - represent the wire side at the gum side, then the positions 5 and 7 will give worse results. The existence of all those 4 positions - or even 1 plus 5 and 7 or 5 plus 1 and 3, etc. - proves that a reverted paper had been used OR that we are dealing with 2 DIFFERENT watermarks!

So much for the theory!
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Re: The watermarks of Poland - 1958-1963

Mensaje por Rein »

Over to some concrete Polish examples


The stamps issued for the 100 Years of Polish Postage Stamps in 1960 had been printed in offset-litho (40 gr i 1,35 zł) and also in the combination of offset-litho and photogravure (60 gr, 1,55 zł, 2.50 zł):

Imagen

The 1,35 zł at the left and the 2,50 zł at the right.

Imagen

You can see at once the watermark on the 2,50 zł stamp i.e. the one printed in offset-litho combined with photogravure.

How about the 2 other denominations of the same series?

Have a good look at the 40gr in both cases:

Imagen

Watermark position 5 - holding it with the direction of paper vertically. On the left stamp the felt side is visible, it is smooth, on the right stamp the watermark is clearly visible and also the rhomboids of the wire side.

We are dealing here with 2 DIFFERENT watermarks resulting in apparently the same position of the watermark!

Let it be said once more that we are studying the watermarks from the back side of a stamp...

Imagen

Picture 5. The opening of the horn facing the left - L

Imagen

Picture 6. The opening of the horn facing the right - R

Two watermarks - denoted with posthorn-L and posthorn-R (I chose the internationally more obvious abbreviations L i R as in English „left“ and „right“ or German „links“ and „rechts.


And this is not yet all of it!!


We denote the watermark with the „L“ or „R“ when it is visible from the gummed side that is also the wire side. But when the gummed side is the felt side and the wire side got printed, we will be tempted to use the „R“ when we see the watermark facing right. In fact we are watching watermark ‚L“ ! To mark the difference between a watermark posthorn-L that seems to be a posthorn-R as seen from the back of the stamp,we shall denote is as posthorn-L‘ ! Similarly we can differentiate posthorn-R and posthorn-R‘ .....

After this flabbergasting mind-game some checkable facts:


Several Polish stamp series have - lucky enough - just a few different position to serve as examples.


* 1958 26.10. Exhibition of 400 years of the Polish Post
- pos. 5 - is L upright

* 1958 15.12. Airmail
- pos. 1- is R „ upsidedown”;
- pos. 3 - is R upright
- pos. 7 - ??? [it is rare and I have not see it yet]

* 1959 18.12. Folkloristic Costumes
- pos. 1 - is R „upsidedown;

* 1960 21.03. 100 Years of Polish Postage Stamps
- pos. 6 - is R’ facing the left (40 gr, 1,35 zł offset-litho)
- pos. 6 - is L facing the left (40 gr, 1,35 zł offset-litho; 60 gr, 1,55 zł, 2,50 zł offset-litho + photogravure)
- pos. 4 - (1.35) ?? [it is rare and I have not seen it yet]

The consequences for Polish philately


The full list of watermark position that had been published in Polish philatelic literature has to be completely revised after a renewed research. Some postage stamps may just have watermark L, others just watermark R - and some as described above in the 100 Years of Polish Postage Stamps series may have both L and R!


This article was written originally in Polish by me and published in the March 2009 issue of Filatelista. I am grateful to the editor in chief Bronisław Rejnowski who has given me such an opportunity!
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Re: The watermarks of Poland - 1958-1963

Mensaje por Rein »

rubiera Wed Mar 11, 2009 09:44:46 am escribió:
Rein,

Great material, please keep adding to it. Could you post images of the Polish definitive series in question.

tony
Tony,

almost two years later! About time to do so! Soon!

to be continued ....
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Re: The watermarks of Poland - 1958-1963

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My having written this article above - in Polish - and me reading Tony Rubiera's excellent postings on Argentine types of paper in the Australian Stampboards Forum triggered off my intrusion into Argentina philately :)
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Re: The watermarks of Poland - 1958-1963

Mensaje por daa1406 »

Excellent article Rein,

Yo soy coleccionista de Polonia y el articulo esta muy bueno.
Si tienes mas informacion de Polonia me interesa mucho.
Mi email personal es daniel.arona@gmail.com

Muchas gracias.
Daniel
Daniel
"La Filatélia es una muestra de la cultura de los pueblos"
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Re: The watermarks of Poland - 1958-1963

Mensaje por Rein »

Having finished my article in Polish at the beginning of 2009 and publishing it in the March number of "Filatelista" I started to collect and study Argentina as you might have noticed!

I haven't returned to the topic for about 7 years now!

Why??? being occupied with other philatelic fields is one explanation, the other one is that I was expecting reactions from Polish philatelists. And that did NOT happen!!

Is studying types of paper that HARD??? Anyhow, the readers of the Foro might judge otherwise....
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Re: The watermarks of Poland - 1958-1963

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Apart from being busy with Argentina stamps, I continued my studies of Polish modern definitives as I spent at least two times a year in Poland thus having the opportunity to get material of first hand.

Studying definitives of Poland is not so difficult - the only problem is get to know the personnel of the Post Offices and ask them to leave the sheet margins intact and NOT tear them off the moment they get their sheets from the storehouse [Kasa Główna in most places].

As mentioned before I was lucky to have good contacts with the editor-in-chief of the Polish magazine "Filatelista" Bronisław Rejnowski and with the publishers of the Polish Handbook - Adam Kiełbasa-Schoeni [and Staszek Fołta]. Without them, no Polish philatelist might have read the results of my studies [or some of it] and yet I do not know whether anyone cares ... :)

I started to unfold the material I bought from Rejnowski at lot earlier consisting of definitives of the last 20 years a few weeks ago when my wife was skiing in the Andorra mountains! Also Adam came up with a few questions of the paper types of some mid 1960-ies stamps, so enough to get to work!
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Re: The watermarks of Poland - 1958-1963

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What came out of the studies - getting some more material of the 1950-1960 period - was quite remarkable!

A booklet about the History of the Polish State Printers, I re-read and also the introduction on stamp paper of the Handbook led to an e-mail contact with another "eminence grise" of Polish philately - Stefan Jakucewicz.

Although we do not quite agree on what happened in the State Printers in those years, for me it has become quite obvious that my initial assumption of there being just long-sieve paper machines at hand was wrong!

At a certain moment in time a round-sieve paper machines had been used for making stamp papers! And the round-sieve machine is responsible for the 2nd [SECOND} watermark "Posthorn".
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Re: The watermarks of Poland - 1958-1963

Mensaje por Rein »

Thanks to Stefan Jakucewicz I got this schematic picture of the round-sieve:

Imagen

Paper still has a felt -side and a wire-site (filc = felt, sito = wire], but the watermark elements are attached to the wire!

Where paper from the long-sieve machine would have the watermark impressed on the felt side versus the wire structure been pressed into the wire side of the paper, in the case of a round-sieve BOTH the wire structure AND the watermark are on the SAME side i.e. on the wire-side. In order NOT the keep the felt from taking off the layer of paper from the round wire, the watermark elements SHOULD NOT stand out too much from the wire structure! And that is what we see! The watermark is much more delicately visible! And a lot MORE difficult!
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