What's in your Library?

I'm a fan of such geometric engravings so this post reminded me of some videos I've watched in the past on YouTube.  Guilloché work is still quite common in the high-end watchmaking industry and is also used for such items as pen barrels, money clips, jewelry boxes, etc.  But I've never before seen the kind of machine used for engraving currency, stamps, passports, stock certificates and so on, and after digging around a little bit, I found one.  I had always wondered how the gearing arrangement worked - I remember reading somewhere that the US Bureau of Engraving & Printing had a 10-gear machine for engraving their currency (go ahead, try to work out the math needed to copy a pattern with 10 wheels!).  The first video gives a better look at how this style of work can be done without electricity, and the second one, although it doesn't have too much footage of machines actually cutting something, finally lets me see how those machines used for currency and stamps worked.

  

Ryan

Me too! I'm not sure I have any, but the price for the book was too good to pass up

Philatarium The images are all B/W and not the clearest I have seen, but non seem to have an art-nouveau flair to the, at leats nothing jumps out.   Many are simple and 'blocky", and they lack the flourish of the Austrian revenues.  The reference provides mainly information about what the stamps were for (statistical fee, postcard tax, yeast tax, saccharine, flour tax....)  I don;t think their economy was very 'robust" following WWI.