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This pane was produced by Joh Enschedé Stamps of
the Netherlands. It is printed by intaglio, a process in which the printing plate or cylinder is
made from a hand-engraved die. It is described on the previous page.
This stamp was engraved by
Czeslaw Slania, perhaps the world's most famous and certainly its
most prolific engraver. Slania, originally from Poland, is the Court Engraver of the Swedish Court. He
engraves all Swedish stamps showing the monarch, plus many others as well. He also engraves stamps for
many other countries, including Greenland, Denmark, and Monaco. He has produced about a half dozen stamps
for the United States and three sets of commemoratives for Great Britain. This is his first postage stamp
picturing Queen Elizabeth II, although he has engraved two portraits of her previously, one of which is
on a stamp-sized label. Slania’s 1,000th stamp will be issued in late 1999 or early 2000.
The remainder of the pane shows an enlargement of part of the die engraved by Slania. The die is
engraved in the size of the printed stamp, requiring an extremely great amount of precision. A
picture of Slania at work is on the fourth interleaf, shown on page 9.
Slania engraved this stamp at the same time that he did the four current Machin high values which
were issued on March 9, 1999.
Several enlargements of one of the stamps are shown on the next page. |
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