What Do Shaolin Monks Wear?

corners dated

At the beginning of the year 1922 the first rotary press for the workshop production of the stamps is used in France.

Use of this revolutionary and promising new technique will debut a bit hectic, but as this mode of printing will soon give satisfaction, it will be gradually generalized and constantly perfected, to supplant typography term definitely flat, previously used since our earliest stamps.

must say that many manipulations tedious and often manual and will be avoided thanks to this upgrade: previously, when printed sheets of 300 stamps, then had to erase the paper, then dry them with infinite care, then separate them into two sheets of 150, then pierce the record, store ...

For the manufacture of wheels famous, he even had to cut into vertical strips that are glued end to end manually and one by one, before enrolling them and put them in boxes! The hopes for this new release were so many great ...

The paper gummed already arrived in the form of large rolls adapted to the rotary press: there was, after printing, to pierce and separate the leaves, automatically numbered.

As with any new technique, of course proceeded to trial, and it turns out that the stamp chosen for these tests is the type Sower: This is the 10 c. Green (Yvert 159), reserved for print, not the patch for the time to freedom from simple letter, which required much larger prints.

It was prudent at that time the side of the boulevard Brune, and modest! It was not going headlong into a new technique for the manufacture of millions of stamps.

10, v. Green Sower will long be the only stamp printed well.

And besides, it was economical, because it seems that the results of these tests, once obtained a satisfactory result, ie the first sheets of stamps printed by a rotary press (which would become the media 1) has indeed subsequently been offered for sale at Post Office counters. There are no small savings!

It is a widely regarded in the leaves from the first A + A cylinder used as tests that were eventually sold. This explains the defects often found on these stamps: print defects, pitting, dates, etc. ...

Finally, when I often say .... Must still have a chance to find these days!

The following pictures show you a few:

Stamps in the last row imperforated (the stitching was done from bottom to top) from a later printing yet: D + D dated June 12, 1922

Big printing defect on the bottom sheet and stitching gradually shifted to the left

Printing on paper fitting within the coil

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The need for equipment special print is the origin of the specific type of these stamps: the type IB. It was made from old punch 10, c. which was initially red (Yvert No 138) and type IA.

It was copied and reworked to give 4 galvanos 50 service, which had to first be bent, ie bent and assembled to give an impression cylinder. A round cylinder then printed 2 sheets of 100 stamps, separated by the famous parallelograms that can be distinguished from the two "planks" of A + A.

As this release 1 involved a cylinder and an inkstand, date and number of sheets were printed at the same time, and are therefore the same color tone: that is green. Moreover, it was necessary to reach this end of the recesses on the left and right in these parallelograms, in order to accommodate this information.

All these features make the charm of these first leaves to the type IB, and allow for easy recognition.

Subsequently, in 1923, the presses will prevent the work it was to identify these sites, and print the date and numbers over the parallelograms in black this time, with the with another cylinder, so they are more visible.
A step forward.

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Autodial rotating sheets facilitated accounting previously manual.

Leaves odd corresponded to one of two A, and leaves the other pairs, each of which can be identified by the different aspect of his parallelograms.

Any study of dies dated follows.

Subsequently, the workshop will add even markings on these parallelograms, different for each of two sheets of a cylinder.

The first brands appeared in June 1924 with the stamp at 85 c. Sower red line, but will first be visible at the bottom left corner. The
here also:

Only in March 1926 with the 30th c. blue Sower that these marks are visible on the lower right of the sheet, so in the corners dated, with the draw H + J.

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Because of numerous leaves defective, it often happened that in a package of one hundred leaves, one is obliged to reject some with errors. A leaf replacement was then inserted into the package, and not to hinder the accounting, the replacement sheet must include the course number of the sheet with errors that had been deleted.

To do this, it nullified by hand, the composter, the number printed and is replaced by the sheet number that had been rejected:

With improved mastering this new technique, sheets with errors are subsequently became more rare, but sometimes that happens anyway, so it is possible to find such lower left corner of sheet re-numbered for all other rotary stamps.

Sometimes even a sheet already renumbered again must replace another sheet with errors, and is therefore being re-re-numbered!

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Corners dated, and even the leaves whole, these initial prints are rotating very rare: we know only three days to this famous drawing A + A, the first date is Saturday, March 4, 1922, date for any collector mythical corner dated!

On 7 March 24 and complete the draw, but the 24 has the number 4 printed sec.

In over 35 years of stamp collecting, I never found a dated corner of the draw!
If you see one one day, you know now who you could sell ...

However, I saw negotiate two full leaves. I of course immediately jumped on the first, but unfortunately missed the second. The seller (VSO celebrates organizer of the Rue Drouot) also was unaware of the rarity! The buyer

not, unfortunately for me ...

In total, we know four in all and for all. And you're very lucky to find three here together for the first time the fourth is the Postal Museum ...

This illustrates perfectly the tedious explanations given above.

Note the absence of a number of press at the gutter, useless since there was only one at the time! And the absence of the 3 future color dots located midway.

The last two, photographed in black and white, have the added advantage of having been printed consecutively (numbers 85714 and 85715 is next) and thus represent a full rotation of cylinder A + A here somehow restored after more than 88 years of separation ....

Note: all three are replacement sheets, re-numbered by hand.

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Hoping you feel like giving you begin the collection of corners dated, collection admittedly somewhat unfashionable today, but full of many wonders the scope of those who can discover them, and a lot of fascinating information and often unknown to our friends stamps.