Collecting By Engraver

NOTA BENE: If you are new to this thread, you're in for a real treat! Feel free to view page after page of beautifully engraved stamps.

Because it has been running for so long, there have been a couple of indices created:

Jan 2012 - Thread Indexed by Engraver here http://goscf.com/t/9106&whichpage=47#178314

Oct 2016 - A complete & comprehensive index by AKPhilately here http://goscf.com/t/9106&whichpage=200#446073

Apr 2018 - Adrian's final index of this thread here http://goscf.com/t/9106&whichpage=234#530138

Thanks to all the contributors! -- KirkS

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THE ORIGINAL POST ....

I was researching this stamp, which I like very much, and I came across a site dedicated to its engraver, Czeslaw Slania, which shows all the stamps he has engraved (and his other work). I am now considering starting a collection of all "his" stamps. Does anyone else have an "engraver" collection? Are stamps by certain engravers (or designers) more valuable for that reason?


Scott 454/ SG500 1969, Danish version of Joint issue with Sweden, Iceland, Norway and Finland, commemorating 50 years of Nordic Association.

He has a huge following in Europe, including cinderella S/S's and covers in his honor. Do some googling, I'm pretty sure their is a society/club/website devoted to collecting his stamps, souvenirs, and memorabilia.

In ten years, I have never seen such a post topic, well done

A stamps value generally lies with it's scarcity
not by it's designer, but certainly the designer can add
to the value when married to the rarity.

Slania would appear the most collected engraver, due to his
extraordinary skill.
I have known a collector who sought all Jennifer Toombs work
(generally the Pacific region)

Personally I like the work of the chaps in the early twentieth century, art nouveau and art deco, and have my favourites,
Being a sixties hippie, naturally the dreamy girls of
Alfons Mucha were plastered over our bedroom walls, and the
connection followed over into stamps.

I have not collected as a dedicated theme, but have often
considered that, I do certainly isolate examples of
designers in my virtual stamp image database.

I particularly like, Italy=Corrado Mezzana, GB= Edmund Dulac
GB= the lettering and value tablets of Eric Gill,
everyone who collects would immediately recognise
the brilliant designs of Willi Dachauer in his Austrian
"ears of corn" and "hammer and pincers" set.
The extensive resume of Eugene Mouchon is a ripper,
and the entire catalogue of the American Banknote issues
are /would be a fascinating collection.

It is difficult to get literature that addresses
stamp design , William Finlay is the best I have come across.

Good luck with your journey, Slania would be a great start, but
seek out other stamps that appeal, and check the designers,
you will probably need old fashioned stamp catalogues to
reveal those.

Part of Eugene Mouchon's resume:

Nice follow-up, Rod!

k

Thank you khj.

Stampgal, here is a very fine Slania link
by the late Mette Heindorff.

She was a lovely lady and created work that inspired me,
I always dreamed of emulating her but we all
have to recognise our limitations.

Be warned, you can get lost for hours looking through
her extensive material :)
http://www.slaniastamps-heindorffhus.com/

Thankyou for all the info (and the thumbs-up, Rod222! - 'preciate it!).
The Heindorff site was the one I found when researching the stamp, its amazing!
I am definitely going to be paying more attention to researching the designers and engravers of my favourite stamps. You obviously know a lot about this area, Rod222, I have seen your posts on the subject in other threads.
So much to learn - so little time!

Not really Stampgal,
I was always interested in the person behind the
design, especially the allegories, but originally thought
this wasn't addressed in mainstream philately.

Then I chanced on William Finlay's book at a
second hand book market, and I was transformed. How someone
could possibly take in philately as a whole and comment
on the entirety of emmissions just was flabbergasting,
he must have had access to some amazing information.

I dibble around the edges, and enjoy locating new stamps
from my fav engravers, but that's really as far as it goes.

You can see with the Slania community, when people
get together under a common interest, all sorts of
amazing information can be accessed.

No doubt, somewhere, groups are focussing in on
dachauer, and Mouchon and Mezzana etc but they take the form
of specialist literature and arrive very costly, and in their
native tongue, hence we in the wider community are not aware
of them immediately.

Australia : Mr Frank Manley at work..




His finished work.

....and there's ANOTHER of my favourite stamps!
I have to go to bed before my head explodes.

StampGal,

I hadn't considered collecting "by engraver" but there might be some merit in the idea.

I can spend hours marveling at the beauty and artistry of the line-engraved stamps at the front end of my collection -- the more recent issuances produced by other methods don't seem to hold the same appeal.

Steve

Here's another -- Google "Adalbert Pilch"



Sorry for the cropped scan -- haste makes waste

Interesting ! I've never thought about building a collection around a single engraver, but I have heard of collections based on an individual artist/designer.

For example, http://www.stamps.org/Albums/Calle.pdf is one of the APS mini-collections. It features the US designs of Chris Calle. A woman named Barbara Kuchau is also well known for creating Pitcairn Island issues.

Fantastic. Both artists unknown to me,
look forward to finding others of Pilch,
I like the way Calle has presented his work for us.


The "dreamy" girls of Mucha I was explaining



The stamp of Pilch
(voted the most beautiful stamp in the world" at the time)

This thread just keep getting better and better and better...

I better not post anything and mess it up!

Great thread topic, great pics, great ideas!

k

khj, you are taking over from KirkS as the most encouraging poster,
I wonder what happened to KirkS ? A thoroughly decent fellow.

When I just went looking for a post of his,
I noticed we currently have 36 people "just lurking"

Slania is still hugely popular here in Northern Europe, but things have calmed down a lot from what they were about a decade ago. Way back there were even full page ads on philatelic magazines about limited Slania blackprints etc. special collector products (yes, they went a bit overboard with commercializing).

Since we have lots of new members, I'll take this opportunity to mention again two Slania factoids...he could engrave 10 lines within one millimeter (though often he conveyed his message with amazingly few lines); and his name is pronounced "SWAN-yahh." (Just in case you're going to do a little name dropping at the next club meeting.)

I have to say, the Pilch is striking, but I don't think I could go all the way to "most beautiful in the world."

More, please! (Is that piggish?)

[edit: There is an indexing effort for this thread found on page 47, which can be linked from the Page ___ of ___ dropdown, or directly, here:
http://goscf.com/t/9106&whichpage=47 ]