Many stamp collectors, noting the impossibility of collecting all the stamps ever issued in the world, turn to a specialty that appeals to them—a certain country, a topic (such as flowers or airplanes), a period in history (19th Century classics or World War II stamps), or a type of stamp (such as stamps with errors, plate number coils or air mail stamps).

   When I began to specialize, it took me some time to decide what my main interest was. I tried collecting various countries but eventually realized that what really sparked my interest was the quality of the visual design of a stamp. Being a sometime printer, I looked for clarity and visual beauty in a stamp. I had done a lot of offset lithograph printing, including multicolor images, and watched the sheets emerge from the press while monitoring the adequacy of the printing job.

   There was no doubt in my mind that stamps printed from engraved plates possess a sharper, clearer image than those printed by lithography (of which offset litho is one type). With a magnifier on the stamp, the engraved image actually improves in quality, while a litho-printed image breaks down into halftone dots and imperfectly-registered colors that degrade or destroy the whole picture. While the engraved image is sharp under magnification, the litho image is blurred.

   Here I must say a little about the differences between the two printing processes. To make an engraved printing plate, a skilled engraver must meticulously draw the design into a soft-metal die which is then hardened and transferred repeatedly onto the metal printing plate to produce a number of images to form a pane of stamps. Ink is collected in or on (depending on details of the process) the engraver’s lines and transferred to paper. The litho process is quite different: an artist produces an image of the stamp’s design, which is then photographed through a halftone screen that breaks the image up into tiny dots. This photograph is transferred optically and chemically to the printing plate. The plate is smeared with water and ink during printing. The water prevents the ink from collecting on the non-image portions of the plate.

   As you can imagine, engraving requires special skills and is time-consuming and more expensive than litho printing. Master engravers such as the late Polish/Swedish engraver Czeslaw Słania become celebrities. But engraving is the printing method of choice where counterfeiting must be prevented. Engraving is too expensive for the counterfeiter who is printing in quanties less than millions. So all our paper money is carefully engraved, and our postage stamps were initially engraved until apparently cost considerations apparently overrode the need for security. You will find that most of the early stamps of nearly any country were engraved, while lithography has mostly taken over in the present day except in a few instances.

   It is usually easy to spot an engraved stamp with the naked eye. The images are sharp and are composed of lines (or dots, but not halftone dots). See the illustration below. This pictures portions of two U.S. Christmas stamps, a 1968 stamp on the left (Scott #1363) and one from 1982 (Scott #2026) on the right.


   The 1968 is engraved and the 1982 is lithoed. Note the difference in the clarity of the images. The 1968, one of the U.S.’s most successful engraved designs, is sharp and clear, even with multicolors (early presses using engraved plates could print only one color at a time, but in 1968 the U.S. had the Huck press for multi-color engraved stamps). In contrast, the 1982 stamp, one of the worst U.S. printing examples, shows blurriness when magnified, with colors somewhat out of register, and with many dropouts—the light specks in the image where the plate was apparently wearing out. Registration was a problem with this stamp, such that it is unusual to find an example of one with near-perfect registration (i.e., where two or more colors are to be placed on top of each other to form a different color; in imperfect registration they don’t hit in exactly the same area, so that the edges of the area show the individual colors protruding).

   While most current U.S. stamps are lithographed, occasionally some nice examples of engraving are produced, such as the U.S.S. Constellation stamp of 2004 (Scott #3869). Other countries that have in the past produced great engraved stamps include France, Sweden, Czechoslovakia, Russia and Monaco. All of these have turned to the cheaper method of lithography to some degree. Below is an example of an exquisitely produced French stamp, the Cezanne art reproduction of 1961.


   Clever compromises with quality and price have been introduced. The U.S., for example, sometimes combines engraving and litho on the same stamp. The 2004 Lewis and Clark Expedition stamps used engraved frames for sharpness and clarity, and lithoed multi-color photos for the central designs.

   Interestingly, though engraved stamps are costlier to produce, they are not usually costlier for collectors to purchase. Image quality doesn’t have nearly as much influence on stamp prices as sheer supply-and-demand does. Scarce stamps are always costlier. Of course, if collectors became more interested in good engraved designs, the demand for them would rise and so would the prices.

   There is a lot more to say about the comparisons of these printing types, especially in regard to the accidental creation of error stamps under each type, and I shall address these topics in future guides.
In my own stamp auctions on eBay, I note when each stamp is an engraved example and sometimes comment on the quality of the engraving.