Post by Deleted on May 8, 2022 9:17:00 GMT
Throughout their production the multiple crown definitives with values from the ½d to the 1/6d were printed by Harrison and sons of Higher Wycombe under contract to the post office at the time, but the watermarked paper used to print the stamps was produced and supplied to Harrison's by the Stowford paper mill owned by Wiggins Teape.
The difference in this paper is quite noticeable, instead of the normal mesh design running horizontal/vertical or criss-cross diagonals I discovered only single lines running at a 45° angle but what appeared more peculiar was that some of the single-lined versions were noticed to be in the opposite direction on certain stamps and only a few values appeared to be affected, namely the 10d, 1/- and 1/6d .
I was of the understanding that De La Rue had taken over Harrison and sons back in 1997, so I decided to contact them with regards to the anomaly found and sent the details to their Basingstoke address I received a reply by the archivist of DLR a Mr Georgie Salzedo who quoted the following after consultation with their design team >>> " It comes from the mould cover. Instead of the now typical weft of The wire and weave going horizontal/vertical. I think this mould cover would have been 45 degrees which adds bulk and less bulk. The GSM would have been so low that the wire would have been seen. "
GSM = The weight of paper is measured in gsm (grams per square metre). Effectively, this is the thickness of the paper: the higher the GSM, the thicker the paper. Most printing paper has a gsm between 60 and 120. 80gsm is standard.
This explained the single lines encountered but not the reversed single line versions that had been found.
Here is the 3rd and final denomination being that of the 10d value as seen in the next attachment for comparison, these single lines are almost like a watermark, which do you think is the reversed version ?
Feel free to comment ! Paperchase
The difference in this paper is quite noticeable, instead of the normal mesh design running horizontal/vertical or criss-cross diagonals I discovered only single lines running at a 45° angle but what appeared more peculiar was that some of the single-lined versions were noticed to be in the opposite direction on certain stamps and only a few values appeared to be affected, namely the 10d, 1/- and 1/6d .
I was of the understanding that De La Rue had taken over Harrison and sons back in 1997, so I decided to contact them with regards to the anomaly found and sent the details to their Basingstoke address I received a reply by the archivist of DLR a Mr Georgie Salzedo who quoted the following after consultation with their design team >>> " It comes from the mould cover. Instead of the now typical weft of The wire and weave going horizontal/vertical. I think this mould cover would have been 45 degrees which adds bulk and less bulk. The GSM would have been so low that the wire would have been seen. "
GSM = The weight of paper is measured in gsm (grams per square metre). Effectively, this is the thickness of the paper: the higher the GSM, the thicker the paper. Most printing paper has a gsm between 60 and 120. 80gsm is standard.
This explained the single lines encountered but not the reversed single line versions that had been found.
Here is the 3rd and final denomination being that of the 10d value as seen in the next attachment for comparison, these single lines are almost like a watermark, which do you think is the reversed version ?
Feel free to comment ! Paperchase