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General Philatelic/Gen. Discussion : Minute Details on Stamps Often Overlooked

 

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ernieinjax
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13 Jan 2019
07:34:41am
I was looking at nranderson's posts on another thread and took a closer look at the "Baby Zepp" stamp. For the first time I noticed the number on the side of the airship. I don't think I had noticed it before. If I did, I don't remember.

What are some of your favorite "minute details" on stamps that are often overlooked and/or might require magnification to see?
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vinman
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13 Jan 2019
09:23:48am
re: Minute Details on Stamps Often Overlooked

U.S. Scott #976, The 1948 Fort Bliss Centennial Issue. Check out the triangular area surrounding the the rocket. Lots of detail.

Vince

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ernieinjax
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13 Jan 2019
11:45:06am
re: Minute Details on Stamps Often Overlooked

On the Baby Zeppelin stamp, would the structure in the bottom right be Lakehurst Hangar No. 1?

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pigdoc

13 Jan 2019
12:04:49pm
re: Minute Details on Stamps Often Overlooked

The number on the side of the Curtiss Jenny depicted in the 24c airmail stamp (US Scott C3, issued May 13, 1918) is 38262.

Image Not Found

According to the American Air Mail Society Catalog (6th edition) that I just received a couple of days ago, that is, indeed the registration number of the plane that made the first official US airmail flight. It was piloted by George L. Boyle, who started from the Potomac Park Polo Grounds south of Washington, D.C. on May 15. Boyle carried one large pouch of mail weighing 140 pounds (about 6,600 covers). The air mail rate for this route was 24c. The plane crashed about 25 miles south of Washington, Boyle having followed by mistake a branch railroad instead of the main line tracks to Baltimore and Philadelphia.

-Paul

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vinman
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13 Jan 2019
12:07:22pm
re: Minute Details on Stamps Often Overlooked

Ernie,
Google is your friend, well I use bing and I found this.

"The new stamp had the same dimensions and printing characteristics as the previous three zeppelin stamps issued in 1930. The new 50 Cent stamp depicted the Graf Zeppelin over the ocean, with the Federal Building, in Chicago, on the left, and the airship's hangar, in Friedrichshaven on the right. The inscription reads A CENTURY OF PROGRESS FLIGHT."



Here is the link.
https://www.stamp-collecting-world.com/grafzeppelin_weimar1933.html

Vince
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ernieinjax
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13 Jan 2019
12:34:35pm
re: Minute Details on Stamps Often Overlooked

Thanks Vince! Reading about the Zeppelin hangar in Friedrichshaven...fascinating story!

"The airship hangar was broken up in early 1943. It was transported to the Zeppelin shipyard on a specifically laid industrial track and reconstructed to meet altered dimensions. In the last months of the war, the hangar was used to assemble a handful of V2 rockets. Of a total of twelve bombing raids on Friedrichshafen, some specifically targeted the airfield and the aviation industry located there. The buildings and grounds sustained heavy damage from the bombing in the last months of the war. The airfield resembled a heavily cratered lunar landscape."



From
https://www.bodensee-airport.eu/en/the-company/flughafen-friedrichshafen-gmbh/portrait/history.php

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ernieinjax
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13 Jan 2019
12:59:43pm
re: Minute Details on Stamps Often Overlooked

Image Not Found


Paul, according to the Friends of Jenny website, that plane is "long gone".

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keesindy
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13 Jan 2019
02:35:59pm
re: Minute Details on Stamps Often Overlooked

Too many "minute details" to name! I began scanning my "collection" (more of an accumulation actually) several years ago. The purpose was to begin selling the stamps, and I continue to do that today. However, in the process, I have come to appreciate my stamps (mostly pre-1940 colonial Africa and Caribbean) far more than I ever did while I was collecting.

Creating quality scans has been a real eye opener for me. The skills of the engravers is so extraordinary. Every time I scan a new group of stamps, I am amazed by what I hadn't previously noticed. The scans reside on my computer (and backed up on external hard drives). So I also enjoy going back through my scans from time to time and reacquainting myself with these works of art. I do miss having the actual stamps, but I've now got digital copies that in some respects are more interesting than the stamps themselves ever were.

Tom

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angore
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Collector, Moderator

13 Jan 2019
02:40:37pm
re: Minute Details on Stamps Often Overlooked

The eyes of the subjects on US Liberty series are amazing. They add life to image.


Image Not Found

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Guthrum
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13 Jan 2019
05:20:37pm
re: Minute Details on Stamps Often Overlooked

Here are two, one very well known, the other perhaps less so.

First, this stamp from April 1941:

Image Not Found

...in which the designer, Major Norman Rybot, has cunningly placed an 'A' in each of four corners of the design. This stands, the Major explained later, for Ad Avernam Adolf Atrox, which (as all classically-educated gentlemen will have known) means To Hell, Atrocious Adolf! I'm sure the good Major will have had a less controversial interpretation to hand, should zealous occupying forces have ever noticed.

The next one may also have been Hitler-related, or perhaps not. It is this one:

Image Not Found

Above the 'es' of 'Deutsches Reich' you will spot, cleverly disguised as part of the lady's jacket, the letters 'AH'. A tribute to the Fuhrer? Perhaps, more likely, the initials of the designers who went by the joint name of 'Axster-Heudtlass'.

A third stamp detail, rather to my dismay, is not actually there. It is the 6+4pf value of the 1937 Winterhilfswerk set (German ships) depicting the ill-fated MV Wilhelm Gustloff. Alas, I had hoped the name would be engraved in tiny letters on the ship, but it is not, so we have only the catalogue to trust as to the ship's identity. Eight years later (30 January 1945), the Wilhelm Gustloff was sunk while carrying ten thousand refugees across the Baltic. 9000 perished, making it the greatest loss of life in a single ship sinking (six times more than died on the Titanic). Here is the stamp anyway:

Image Not Found

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Bobstamp
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13 Jan 2019
11:48:59pm
re: Minute Details on Stamps Often Overlooked

Further to Guthrun's post, Col. Rybot didn't stop with his "Ad Avernam Adolf Atrox" subterfuge. In 1942, the 1/2d stamp in the same set was released with the initial's "AABB" in the corners, the A's for "Adolph" and the B's for "Bloody Benito".

Rybot's act of resistance was predated by a month when the Guernsey's 1/2d occupation stamp was issued. From Part 5 of my web page, "The Channel Islands at war — Resistance through postage stamps":

"The designer of the Guernsey occupation stamps, E.W. Vaudin, counting on Teutonic ignorance of British tradition, used the Guernsey Coat of Arms for his basic design — three heraldic English lions (or leopards, according to some sources) on a red shield.

The Guernsey Arms derive from seals granted to the island in the late 13th Century by King Edward I. The German occupation authorities in Guernsey apparently were unaware that the Arms were also the personal arms of England’s King George VI, who reigned throughout the Second World War. They are nearly identical to the Jersey Coat ofArms."



Bob


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pigdoc

14 Jan 2019
02:59:06pm
re: Minute Details on Stamps Often Overlooked

Interesting.

Yes, according to the write-up, tough call on distinguishing the genuine overprint from forged.

Odd that the overprint depicts a Bleriot monoplane. Obviously, a machine capable of evoking national pride in the French, but one that never carried the mails, and had been obsolete for 15 years by 1927...

-Paul

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cdj1122
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Silence in the face of adversity is the father of complicity and collusion, the first cousins of conspiracy..

15 Jan 2019
11:25:13am
re: Minute Details on Stamps Often Overlooked

".... depicting the ill-fated MV Wilhelm Gustloff.
Alas, I had hoped the name would be engraved in tiny
letters on the ship, but it is not, so we have only
the catalogue to trust as to the ship's identity. ..."


Having built a small model some, almost sixty-seven,
years ago the stamp image looks close enough for
such a small reproduction. The four rows of portholes
along the length of the hull and the way the lifeboats
are mounted seem right.

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".... You may think you understood what you thought I said, but I'm not sure you realize that what you think you heard is not what I thought I meant. .... "
pigdoc

15 Jan 2019
11:49:27am
re: Minute Details on Stamps Often Overlooked

From wikipedia:

"Heinz Schön, a German archivist and Gustloff survivor who extensively researched the sinking during the 1980s and 1990s, concluded that Wilhelm Gustloff was carrying a crew of 173 (naval armed forces auxiliaries), 918 officers, NCOs, and men of the 2 Unterseeboot-Lehrdivision, 373 female naval auxiliary helpers, 162 wounded soldiers, and 8,956 civilians, of which an estimated 5,000 were children, for a total of 10,582 passengers and crew. The passengers besides civilians included Gestapo personnel, members of the Organisation Todt, and Nazi officials with their families...As Wilhelm Gustloff had been fitted with anti-aircraft guns, and the Germans, in obedience to the rules of war, did not mark her as a hospital ship, no notification of her operating in a hospital capacity had been given and, as she was transporting military personnel, she did not have any protection as a hospital ship under international accords"



Given the vengeance dominating the mood of Russian soldiers in 1945, if the crew of Russian submarine S-13 had any intelligence on the composition of the passengers, I would not have expected them to hesitate launching torpedoes...

Again, from wikipedia:

"Captain Alexander Marinesko ordered his crew to launch four torpedoes at Wilhelm Gustloff's port side, about 30 km (16 nmi; 19 mi) offshore, between Großendorf and Leba. The first was nicknamed "for the Motherland," the second "for Leningrad," the third "for the Soviet people", and the fourth, which got jammed in the torpedo tubes and had to be dismantled, "for Stalin." [10] The three torpedoes which were fired successfully all struck Wilhelm Gustloff on her port side."



Fascinating story!
Death in the Baltic: The World War II Sinking of the Wilhelm Gustloff
(2014) by Cathryn J. Prince. Just made my reading list!

The fact that the stamp was issued in 1937 (the year the ship was launched) makes it a spooky foreshadowing.

-Paul

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sheepshanks
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15 Jan 2019
12:03:15pm
re: Minute Details on Stamps Often Overlooked

The only ship image that showed a comparable view is this one, most images seem to be of the port side.
It certainly seems likely the stamp image is of the correct vessel.
Image Not Found

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Benque

15 Jan 2019
12:03:36pm
re: Minute Details on Stamps Often Overlooked

Add to that that the THREE flower blossoms on the stamp look kind of like explosions, albeit on her starboard side, eerie indeed.

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DaveSheridan
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15 Jan 2019
05:10:43pm
re: Minute Details on Stamps Often Overlooked

A number of Croatia issues from the 1940's have the engravers initial hidden in the design, but only on one stamp in a sheet. They're fun to hunt for

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cdj1122
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Silence in the face of adversity is the father of complicity and collusion, the first cousins of conspiracy..

16 Jan 2019
05:32:29pm
re: Minute Details on Stamps Often Overlooked

The fact that the stamp was issued in 1937
(the year the ship was launched) makes it a
spooky foreshadowing.


And
Add to that that the THREE flower blossoms
on the stamp look kind of like explosions,


In what way is the stamp of a ship issued
seven years before the torpedoing either freaky,
or eerie ?
I am sure I can find over a hundred stamps with
ships on them that did not presage a disaster
beyond some dishes crashing to the deck during
a rough storm.
With all due respect, that is nonsense.
Thinking about it further, I have no doubt that
we also can find a hundred vessels that were
torpedoed that never had a stamp created with
their image.

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".... You may think you understood what you thought I said, but I'm not sure you realize that what you think you heard is not what I thought I meant. .... "
ikeyPikey
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16 Jan 2019
08:41:56pm
re: Minute Details on Stamps Often Overlooked

"... I began scanning my "collection" (more of an accumulation actually) several years ago. ... in the process, I have come to appreciate my stamps (mostly pre-1940 colonial Africa and Caribbean) far more than I ever did while I was collecting ..."



When I first began visiting online resources like SOR, it occurred to me that I might prefer to just collect the high res scans and, for the complete analog experience, print them as color photo enlargements.

There is a certain perverse justice that this strategy pays-off best with the older engraved stamps.

Cheers,

/s/ ikeyPikey
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keesindy
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17 Jan 2019
08:33:54am
re: Minute Details on Stamps Often Overlooked

ikeyPikey wrote:

"...print them as color photo enlargements."



I've played around with this concept. For example, I created prints of the Canadian "Bluenose" and "Royal William" commemorative stamps and printed them on 11" by 8.5" paper. Both were printed with faux background and double matting (much cheaper than having a frame shop cut matting!). The "Bluenose" stamp image itself is only about 7" by 4.75".

With a good 600 dpi scan, I think that size offers striking detail. However, I think that size is probably the upper limit for good looking prints. Beyond that size, the engraving details begin to overwhelm and detract from the artistic value of the original engraved stamp image.

Here is a JPG of the "Bluenose" stamp print along with a close-up section.

Image Not Found

Image Not Found

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ikeyPikey
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17 Jan 2019
11:03:39am
re: Minute Details on Stamps Often Overlooked

.
Excellent results!

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JohnnyRockets
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17 Jan 2019
01:54:12pm
re: Minute Details on Stamps Often Overlooked

This is a really GREAT topic!

I'm enjoying everyone's input...

Tiny details overlooked is very interesting to me.


Now I have to run home and start looking for them on my stamps! Happy



JR

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ernieinjax

13 Jan 2019
07:34:41am

I was looking at nranderson's posts on another thread and took a closer look at the "Baby Zepp" stamp. For the first time I noticed the number on the side of the airship. I don't think I had noticed it before. If I did, I don't remember.

What are some of your favorite "minute details" on stamps that are often overlooked and/or might require magnification to see?

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vinman

13 Jan 2019
09:23:48am

re: Minute Details on Stamps Often Overlooked

U.S. Scott #976, The 1948 Fort Bliss Centennial Issue. Check out the triangular area surrounding the the rocket. Lots of detail.

Vince

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ernieinjax

13 Jan 2019
11:45:06am

re: Minute Details on Stamps Often Overlooked

On the Baby Zeppelin stamp, would the structure in the bottom right be Lakehurst Hangar No. 1?

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pigdoc

13 Jan 2019
12:04:49pm

re: Minute Details on Stamps Often Overlooked

The number on the side of the Curtiss Jenny depicted in the 24c airmail stamp (US Scott C3, issued May 13, 1918) is 38262.

Image Not Found

According to the American Air Mail Society Catalog (6th edition) that I just received a couple of days ago, that is, indeed the registration number of the plane that made the first official US airmail flight. It was piloted by George L. Boyle, who started from the Potomac Park Polo Grounds south of Washington, D.C. on May 15. Boyle carried one large pouch of mail weighing 140 pounds (about 6,600 covers). The air mail rate for this route was 24c. The plane crashed about 25 miles south of Washington, Boyle having followed by mistake a branch railroad instead of the main line tracks to Baltimore and Philadelphia.

-Paul

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vinman

13 Jan 2019
12:07:22pm

re: Minute Details on Stamps Often Overlooked

Ernie,
Google is your friend, well I use bing and I found this.

"The new stamp had the same dimensions and printing characteristics as the previous three zeppelin stamps issued in 1930. The new 50 Cent stamp depicted the Graf Zeppelin over the ocean, with the Federal Building, in Chicago, on the left, and the airship's hangar, in Friedrichshaven on the right. The inscription reads A CENTURY OF PROGRESS FLIGHT."



Here is the link.
https://www.stamp-collecting-world.com/grafzeppelin_weimar1933.html

Vince
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ernieinjax

13 Jan 2019
12:34:35pm

re: Minute Details on Stamps Often Overlooked

Thanks Vince! Reading about the Zeppelin hangar in Friedrichshaven...fascinating story!

"The airship hangar was broken up in early 1943. It was transported to the Zeppelin shipyard on a specifically laid industrial track and reconstructed to meet altered dimensions. In the last months of the war, the hangar was used to assemble a handful of V2 rockets. Of a total of twelve bombing raids on Friedrichshafen, some specifically targeted the airfield and the aviation industry located there. The buildings and grounds sustained heavy damage from the bombing in the last months of the war. The airfield resembled a heavily cratered lunar landscape."



From
https://www.bodensee-airport.eu/en/the-company/flughafen-friedrichshafen-gmbh/portrait/history.php

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ernieinjax

13 Jan 2019
12:59:43pm

re: Minute Details on Stamps Often Overlooked

Image Not Found


Paul, according to the Friends of Jenny website, that plane is "long gone".

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keesindy

13 Jan 2019
02:35:59pm

re: Minute Details on Stamps Often Overlooked

Too many "minute details" to name! I began scanning my "collection" (more of an accumulation actually) several years ago. The purpose was to begin selling the stamps, and I continue to do that today. However, in the process, I have come to appreciate my stamps (mostly pre-1940 colonial Africa and Caribbean) far more than I ever did while I was collecting.

Creating quality scans has been a real eye opener for me. The skills of the engravers is so extraordinary. Every time I scan a new group of stamps, I am amazed by what I hadn't previously noticed. The scans reside on my computer (and backed up on external hard drives). So I also enjoy going back through my scans from time to time and reacquainting myself with these works of art. I do miss having the actual stamps, but I've now got digital copies that in some respects are more interesting than the stamps themselves ever were.

Tom

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angore

Collector, Moderator
13 Jan 2019
02:40:37pm

re: Minute Details on Stamps Often Overlooked

The eyes of the subjects on US Liberty series are amazing. They add life to image.


Image Not Found

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Guthrum

13 Jan 2019
05:20:37pm

re: Minute Details on Stamps Often Overlooked

Here are two, one very well known, the other perhaps less so.

First, this stamp from April 1941:

Image Not Found

...in which the designer, Major Norman Rybot, has cunningly placed an 'A' in each of four corners of the design. This stands, the Major explained later, for Ad Avernam Adolf Atrox, which (as all classically-educated gentlemen will have known) means To Hell, Atrocious Adolf! I'm sure the good Major will have had a less controversial interpretation to hand, should zealous occupying forces have ever noticed.

The next one may also have been Hitler-related, or perhaps not. It is this one:

Image Not Found

Above the 'es' of 'Deutsches Reich' you will spot, cleverly disguised as part of the lady's jacket, the letters 'AH'. A tribute to the Fuhrer? Perhaps, more likely, the initials of the designers who went by the joint name of 'Axster-Heudtlass'.

A third stamp detail, rather to my dismay, is not actually there. It is the 6+4pf value of the 1937 Winterhilfswerk set (German ships) depicting the ill-fated MV Wilhelm Gustloff. Alas, I had hoped the name would be engraved in tiny letters on the ship, but it is not, so we have only the catalogue to trust as to the ship's identity. Eight years later (30 January 1945), the Wilhelm Gustloff was sunk while carrying ten thousand refugees across the Baltic. 9000 perished, making it the greatest loss of life in a single ship sinking (six times more than died on the Titanic). Here is the stamp anyway:

Image Not Found

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Bobstamp

13 Jan 2019
11:48:59pm

re: Minute Details on Stamps Often Overlooked

Further to Guthrun's post, Col. Rybot didn't stop with his "Ad Avernam Adolf Atrox" subterfuge. In 1942, the 1/2d stamp in the same set was released with the initial's "AABB" in the corners, the A's for "Adolph" and the B's for "Bloody Benito".

Rybot's act of resistance was predated by a month when the Guernsey's 1/2d occupation stamp was issued. From Part 5 of my web page, "The Channel Islands at war — Resistance through postage stamps":

"The designer of the Guernsey occupation stamps, E.W. Vaudin, counting on Teutonic ignorance of British tradition, used the Guernsey Coat of Arms for his basic design — three heraldic English lions (or leopards, according to some sources) on a red shield.

The Guernsey Arms derive from seals granted to the island in the late 13th Century by King Edward I. The German occupation authorities in Guernsey apparently were unaware that the Arms were also the personal arms of England’s King George VI, who reigned throughout the Second World War. They are nearly identical to the Jersey Coat ofArms."



Bob


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pigdoc

14 Jan 2019
02:59:06pm

re: Minute Details on Stamps Often Overlooked

Interesting.

Yes, according to the write-up, tough call on distinguishing the genuine overprint from forged.

Odd that the overprint depicts a Bleriot monoplane. Obviously, a machine capable of evoking national pride in the French, but one that never carried the mails, and had been obsolete for 15 years by 1927...

-Paul

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Silence in the face of adversity is the father of complicity and collusion, the first cousins of conspiracy..
15 Jan 2019
11:25:13am

re: Minute Details on Stamps Often Overlooked

".... depicting the ill-fated MV Wilhelm Gustloff.
Alas, I had hoped the name would be engraved in tiny
letters on the ship, but it is not, so we have only
the catalogue to trust as to the ship's identity. ..."


Having built a small model some, almost sixty-seven,
years ago the stamp image looks close enough for
such a small reproduction. The four rows of portholes
along the length of the hull and the way the lifeboats
are mounted seem right.

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".... You may think you understood what you thought I said, but I'm not sure you realize that what you think you heard is not what I thought I meant. .... "
pigdoc

15 Jan 2019
11:49:27am

re: Minute Details on Stamps Often Overlooked

From wikipedia:

"Heinz Schön, a German archivist and Gustloff survivor who extensively researched the sinking during the 1980s and 1990s, concluded that Wilhelm Gustloff was carrying a crew of 173 (naval armed forces auxiliaries), 918 officers, NCOs, and men of the 2 Unterseeboot-Lehrdivision, 373 female naval auxiliary helpers, 162 wounded soldiers, and 8,956 civilians, of which an estimated 5,000 were children, for a total of 10,582 passengers and crew. The passengers besides civilians included Gestapo personnel, members of the Organisation Todt, and Nazi officials with their families...As Wilhelm Gustloff had been fitted with anti-aircraft guns, and the Germans, in obedience to the rules of war, did not mark her as a hospital ship, no notification of her operating in a hospital capacity had been given and, as she was transporting military personnel, she did not have any protection as a hospital ship under international accords"



Given the vengeance dominating the mood of Russian soldiers in 1945, if the crew of Russian submarine S-13 had any intelligence on the composition of the passengers, I would not have expected them to hesitate launching torpedoes...

Again, from wikipedia:

"Captain Alexander Marinesko ordered his crew to launch four torpedoes at Wilhelm Gustloff's port side, about 30 km (16 nmi; 19 mi) offshore, between Großendorf and Leba. The first was nicknamed "for the Motherland," the second "for Leningrad," the third "for the Soviet people", and the fourth, which got jammed in the torpedo tubes and had to be dismantled, "for Stalin." [10] The three torpedoes which were fired successfully all struck Wilhelm Gustloff on her port side."



Fascinating story!
Death in the Baltic: The World War II Sinking of the Wilhelm Gustloff
(2014) by Cathryn J. Prince. Just made my reading list!

The fact that the stamp was issued in 1937 (the year the ship was launched) makes it a spooky foreshadowing.

-Paul

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sheepshanks

15 Jan 2019
12:03:15pm

re: Minute Details on Stamps Often Overlooked

The only ship image that showed a comparable view is this one, most images seem to be of the port side.
It certainly seems likely the stamp image is of the correct vessel.
Image Not Found

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Benque

15 Jan 2019
12:03:36pm

re: Minute Details on Stamps Often Overlooked

Add to that that the THREE flower blossoms on the stamp look kind of like explosions, albeit on her starboard side, eerie indeed.

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DaveSheridan

15 Jan 2019
05:10:43pm

re: Minute Details on Stamps Often Overlooked

A number of Croatia issues from the 1940's have the engravers initial hidden in the design, but only on one stamp in a sheet. They're fun to hunt for

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Silence in the face of adversity is the father of complicity and collusion, the first cousins of conspiracy..
16 Jan 2019
05:32:29pm

re: Minute Details on Stamps Often Overlooked

The fact that the stamp was issued in 1937
(the year the ship was launched) makes it a
spooky foreshadowing.


And
Add to that that the THREE flower blossoms
on the stamp look kind of like explosions,


In what way is the stamp of a ship issued
seven years before the torpedoing either freaky,
or eerie ?
I am sure I can find over a hundred stamps with
ships on them that did not presage a disaster
beyond some dishes crashing to the deck during
a rough storm.
With all due respect, that is nonsense.
Thinking about it further, I have no doubt that
we also can find a hundred vessels that were
torpedoed that never had a stamp created with
their image.

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Login to Like
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".... You may think you understood what you thought I said, but I'm not sure you realize that what you think you heard is not what I thought I meant. .... "
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ikeyPikey

16 Jan 2019
08:41:56pm

re: Minute Details on Stamps Often Overlooked

"... I began scanning my "collection" (more of an accumulation actually) several years ago. ... in the process, I have come to appreciate my stamps (mostly pre-1940 colonial Africa and Caribbean) far more than I ever did while I was collecting ..."



When I first began visiting online resources like SOR, it occurred to me that I might prefer to just collect the high res scans and, for the complete analog experience, print them as color photo enlargements.

There is a certain perverse justice that this strategy pays-off best with the older engraved stamps.

Cheers,

/s/ ikeyPikey
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"I collect stamps today precisely the way I collected stamps when I was ten years old."
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keesindy

17 Jan 2019
08:33:54am

re: Minute Details on Stamps Often Overlooked

ikeyPikey wrote:

"...print them as color photo enlargements."



I've played around with this concept. For example, I created prints of the Canadian "Bluenose" and "Royal William" commemorative stamps and printed them on 11" by 8.5" paper. Both were printed with faux background and double matting (much cheaper than having a frame shop cut matting!). The "Bluenose" stamp image itself is only about 7" by 4.75".

With a good 600 dpi scan, I think that size offers striking detail. However, I think that size is probably the upper limit for good looking prints. Beyond that size, the engraving details begin to overwhelm and detract from the artistic value of the original engraved stamp image.

Here is a JPG of the "Bluenose" stamp print along with a close-up section.

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"I no longer collect, but will never abandon the hobby"
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ikeyPikey

17 Jan 2019
11:03:39am

re: Minute Details on Stamps Often Overlooked

.
Excellent results!

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"I collect stamps today precisely the way I collected stamps when I was ten years old."
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JohnnyRockets

17 Jan 2019
01:54:12pm

re: Minute Details on Stamps Often Overlooked

This is a really GREAT topic!

I'm enjoying everyone's input...

Tiny details overlooked is very interesting to me.


Now I have to run home and start looking for them on my stamps! Happy



JR

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