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Stamps of Bruce Henderson

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Colin View Drop Down
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Post Options Post Options   Quote Colin Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 18 March 2020 at 04:35
Originally posted by lickandstick lickandstick wrote:



 Why don't you show us how it's done Colin?  Some build up pictures perhaps or gifs?  Have you got time on your hands during the coronavirus outbreak?  



I am not going to take any credit for these productions - inferred or otherwise - I didn't produce them.


I don't have any more time on my hands than I would normally have as I am freelance and work from home - so I suppose I have been self-isolating for the last 35 years - BUT if Bruce has time I am sure we'd all love to hear how he goes about building up his stamps from all those component parts to the finished artwork and printing.  

What do you say, Bruce?

Wink
My Etsy shop - FarFetchedPhilately - new 'stuff' coming soon...




https://www.etsy.com/uk/shop/FarFetchedPhilately

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Post Options Post Options   Quote Panterra Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 18 March 2020 at 12:25
Okay, I will try to write a report on how a stamp is done.  Maybe using the new Free Vinland set as an example.

But today is the opening day of the "International Stamp Exhibition" in Auckland (now downgraded to a "national" show, since the border closing means foreigners can't attend), so I am about to rush off and view this.

Free Vinland 2020 Victims of the Great Purges set.
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Post Options Post Options   Quote Panterra Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 18 March 2020 at 18:17
Originally posted by NZ 2020 International Stamp Exhibition website NZ 2020 International Stamp Exhibition website wrote:

Yes! The show goes on, but not as we envisaged.

This afternoon the New Zealand Government placed more restrictions on travel into New Zealand. From the end of Sunday 15 March all travellers coming to New Zealand MUST go into isolation for 14 days. This obviously will apply to Commissioners, Jury members and overseas dealers, as well as individual people planning to come to New Zealand for the exhibition.

The Organising Committee therefore has no choice but to cancel the international aspect of the exhibition.

...
[Posted 14 March 2020]


Today was the opening day for this show, so I trotted along to have a look and buy up some gems.



Attendance was sparse, with most attendees haunting the dealer stalls on the ground floor, and few making the trek to the exhibition area on the third floor.


Nobody visible in my photos of the displays!

After buying the Catalogue of the show at the entry, I found it was pointless, as most of the foreign exhibits have not arrived, so the catalogue is useless.  And the organisers did a quick drum-around of collectors to rustle up extra "free" displays, to try to fill the empty frames.  Many of these unexpected (and unlisted in the show's catalogue) displays, were, however, superb!  An exhibit of Thailand earlies was all actual-size colour photocopies, due to the exhibitor being unable to make it.


The only known survivor of China's 1945 Tien-Tai bisect, on wrapper.
Over 2,000 were used, but only one survived.


On the dealer floor, LOTS of the stalls were unstaffed and unattended (mostly the overseas dealers who couldn't get in), but surprisingly, Southern Colour Print, a Dunedin printing firm with the contract to print current New Zealand stamps, also failed to attend.  Maybe they wrote the wrong date in their diary?

According to the exhibition website, they were due to have a perforating machine on the stall, demonstrating perfing.  Maybe I should have offered to replace them, and taken my 1895 vintage foot-operated perforator.  (I did this at one of Auckland Philatelic Society's exhibitions back in 2005, and personalised cinderella stamps were printed then perfed on the day for clients wishing this service.)


Minisheet made at the Auckland Philatelic Society's exhibition, 2005, with one stamp showing each of the ten dealers present.

This was done during a quiet period between doing client orders, as my colleague with camera visited each stall and took the photos.
I worked on assembling the stamps and minisheet overnight, then next morning, each dealer was presented with a pile of the stamps
showing him/her, plus a few minisheets.  The Society sold minisheets on its table until they ran out.

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Post Options Post Options   Quote hehapaoroto Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 19 March 2020 at 03:49
Originally posted by Panterra Panterra wrote:

Okay, I will try to write a report on how a stamp is done.  

I can't wait to see how a stamp is done.

Thanks Colin
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Post Options Post Options   Quote Panterra Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 21 March 2020 at 03:27

How to make stamps

by Bruce Henderson bh@graphic-designer.com

 

To make stamps using a computer (which is the way I usually do stamps these days as it is fast and allows for full-colour production), you need three programs: Word (or a similar word-processing program); Photoshop (or a similar graphics program); and Freehand (or a similar vector-graphics program); and a laser-printer.

Let’s use the Free Vinland 2020 Victims of the Great Purges set as an example, as this is my most recent job, so the details are fresh in my brain.


Free Vinland 2020 Victims of the Great Purges set.

The client emailed me the details of the stamps, with brief biographies and photos of the ten men.  So this required a set of ten, which is rather more than I usually get: most sets I do are standardised at four values.

First, I saved each of the photos in Photoshop, then enlarged each one from the “standard” size of 72 dots per inch (that they were sent as) to 300 dpi (which makes the photos a lot sharper and bigger.)  Each photo was cropped slightly to get rid of unwanted background and centre the face.  Each of the photos then had a colour frame added, to hold the surrounding text, and this is also done in Photoshop and saved.  Finally, each design then has a final tiny frame added in a contrasting colour around the edge of the existing coloured  borders, and is then cropped and reduced until the effect looks good.  The finished version is saved with -f.jpg as the final element on the file name (where f = Final version) so that I can delete all the saved intermediate stages, and only use the f versions for the stamps.

Next, we open Freehand, a vector-graphics program.  This is used to assemble all the stamps and text, so to begin, we open a new “blank” page, and import the ten files one by one. Each one is huge so must be scaled down to stamp-size. To do this, I got one design down to the desired stamp size, then made all the others the same height.  As the photos vary in size, all the stamps have different widths, even after I cropped some of the original photos I was given.  This means that although all the ten stamps will be the same height, they may not necessarily be the same width, which makes it difficult to do a minisheet containing the ten stamps.  I could have bluffed one through, similar to the 2005 APS Stamp exhibition “dealers sheet”, but prefer a less-messy look, and so opted to go for two minisheets, each comprising five values, and each stamp being a vertical pair. 

Having now got my ten stamps on the page, I need to add the desired text.  The client instructed that each stamp should show the name and dates for each of the gentlemen, and this is where life became rather complicated, as there is a lot of room for error here. Imagine the disaster if L. Kamenev was mis-labelled as K. Radek, for instance! So, after careful checking, I entered the name and dates below one stamp, then copied it on to each of the other nine, and changed each one to show the correct names and dates.  In some cases, I also needed to increase or reduce the size, and change the colour to contrast against the frame background colour.

Then the same procedure was followed for all other details.  The year of issue, 2020, needs to be shown on each stamp, as a helpful guide for future collectors, so after entering this on one stamp, it was copied and pasted on each of the others, and sometimes changed in colour to show adequately against the background.

The country name on the top of the frame, and the set title along the left border were also added, then copied and pasted on to each stamp.

The final tricky part was the values.  I examined the Post Office stamp counter book of Free Vinland that I keep here, to see what values FVR uses.  The “postal unit” of FVR is 15 cents, which means rates are all multiples of 15c, with a maximum of $3, so chose ten values to use.  Each was then assembled, then copied on to the other values and re-sized as needed.  The values were all done in yellow with a black keyline surrounding each, to make them easier to see.

Finally, all the stamps are ready.  Now they need to be arranged into the two minisheets, and to do this, Freehand allows us to drop pale blue guidelines on to the page to align your stamps up to, although these guidelines fortunately will not print out on the finished page.  We add guidelines for both horizontal and vertical positioning.  Then paste in five values to make the top row of the first sheet, then group these, copy the group, and paste it below to make row 2.  Then the second sheet is done in a similar way.  The country name is inserted at the top of each sheet, the printer name down the right selvedge, and the sheet value in the left selvedge.  I had to be very careful in adding up the face value for each sheet, as to get these figures wrong could cause a loss to the Free Vinland Post Office, plus ruin the good reputation of the printer!

When all is ready, the stamps and selvedge details are all grouped and saved.  Then 5 test sheets are printed on the usual 100 gsm white paper.  These are carefully inspected, then taken to the treadle perforator, a huge machine dating from 1895, and carefully perfed.  Finally, the sheets are taken to a guillotine and have the unwanted edges trimmed off.

Now the stamps are finished.  But it is important to have a sign-off from the client.  So two of each value are affixed to the pre-printed gold “Proof for approval” cards, and airmailed to the client (who lives in Scotland, in this case.)  Only when the signed approved cards are received back can the printing proceed and an issue date be decided. The client will be responsible for checking that the correct names and dates are shown below each portrait.

In the case of this issue, the FVR Victims of the Purges set, I began work on them at midnight, and finished at 4 a.m.  But then left the perfing and affixing to the proof cards till the next day.

So that is how colour stamps are done.  A quite straightforward process, and surprisingly fast.  I also occasionally do stamps by letterpress (frequently called “typography” by philatelists), and this system will be the subject of a separate report.


 

 

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Post Options Post Options   Quote lickandstick Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 23 March 2020 at 02:48
That's brilliant Colin, but how do you 'do' your Isle of Vue stamps?


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Post Options Post Options   Quote Daniel Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 23 March 2020 at 11:02
Originally posted by lickandstick lickandstick wrote:

That's brilliant Colin, but how do you 'do' your Isle of Vue stamps?



Hi lickandstick, 

It appears that you are mixing up Colin and Panterra. They are two different people!

Colin, whose forum this is, designed the early Discworld stamps and the Isle of Vue stamps and others. He goes by the name Colin or Admin on this forum.

Panterra is Bruce Henderson who has long been in involved in Cinderella stamp production and posts frequently on this forum. He is simply a member of this forum like you me.

I hope that this clarifies matters for you.

Daniel 
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Post Options Post Options   Quote Colin Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 24 March 2020 at 00:54
Originally posted by Daniel Daniel wrote:

[QUOTE=lickandstick]
It appears that you are mixing up Colin and Panterra. They are two different people!


It's all true licknstick, the clue is in the title of the thread... Stamps of Bruce Henderson.


My Etsy shop - FarFetchedPhilately - new 'stuff' coming soon...




https://www.etsy.com/uk/shop/FarFetchedPhilately

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Post Options Post Options   Quote Panterra Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 29 March 2020 at 14:53

Mevu 2008 Shackleton Expedition centenary set.

To celebrate the centenary of the British Antarctic Expedition led by Sir Ernest Shackleton 1907 to 1909, the small Antarctic country Mevu issued a set of four stamps in 2008.

The designs:


17 tanos ... The Beardmore Glacier, first discovered by Shackleton.

35 tanos ... Adelie penguins.

50 tanos ... Shackleton's expedition ship, the "Nimrod", departing from Lyttelton for Antarctica, 1907.

1.85 reis ... Sir Ernest Shackleton (1874 - 1922).

===

This set was a joint issue with Kemp Land, which issued similar stamps.

Sir Ernest Shackleton (1874 – 1922) was an Anglo-Irish explorer who was one of the principal figures of the period known as the Heroic Age of Antarctic Exploration. His first experience of the polar regions was as third officer on Captain Robert Falcon Scott’s Discovery Expedition, 1901–04, from which he was sent home early on health grounds. Determined to make amends for this perceived personal failure, he returned to Antarctica in 1907 as leader of the Nimrod Expedition. In January 1909 he and three companions made a southern march which established a record Farthest South latitude 190 km from the South Pole, by far the closest convergence in exploration history up to that time. For this achievement, Shackleton was knighted by King Edward VII on his return home.

After the race to the South Pole ended in 1912 with Roald Amundsen's conquest, Shackleton turned his attention to what he said was the one remaining great object of Antarctic journeying -– the crossing of the continent from sea to sea, via the pole.

For more information on Mevu and its stamps, please visit the Mevu website, www.angelfire.com/country/mevu/

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Post Options Post Options   Quote Panterra Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 17 April 2020 at 03:34

Waikoa Island 2020 Letter-Writing Week.

To celebrate Letter-Writing Week, the small Waikoa Island will issue an attractive stamp on 25th April 2020.


Originally posted by Waikoa Island Philatelic Bulletin Waikoa Island Philatelic Bulletin wrote:

The Waikoa Island Post Office will issue a new stamp to celebrate Letter-Writing Week, announced the Governor, Dr Sverre Hanssen, today.

The 35 tanos stamp features a photo of a residential letterbox in Golden Beach, Queensland; the photo was taken by Mr Terence Dell. 

Date of issue is 25th April 2020, the first day of the significant week.  The stamps have
been printed in full colour and perforated 12 gauge, by Chan Hui Shudian Printing SA, Minaue. They are issued in small minisheets of ten, with the Lorax in the selvedge, urging people to save the trees. Attractive first day covers bearing the stamp are 85 tanos.

Four reasons  why you should put pen to paper and indulge  in handwriting letters:

We all know how special it is to receive a handwritten letter in the mail. There is something personal about the time and consideration that has gone into creating a letter, and more meaning to be found in the imperfect text than in an email – especially in today’s highly digital world. As author Haruki Murakami said, “How wonderful it is to be able to write someone a letter! To feel like conveying your thoughts to a person, to sit at your desk and pick up a pen, to put your thoughts into words like this is truly marvelous.

If the joy you experience in receiving a handwritten letter isn’t enough to tempt you into writing one of your own, here are four reasons you should:

1.   You’ll make someone happy: the receiver of your letter is going to get a burst of excitement and know that you care. This, in turn, will make you feel good about yourself.

2.   It’s fun: handwriting stimulates creativity and encourages you to explore. Experiment with doodles or stickers, use scented pens and decorate the envelope to really unleash your inner playfulness. Use commemorative stamps on the envelope.

3.   It promotes mindfulness: just like colouring-in creates calmness and relieves anxiety, so too does handwriting. It asks you to slow down and take care in the process – you can’t backspace anything, so you are required to put thought into what you write. Plus the rhythmic movement of pen-on-paper encourages clarity and peace.

4.   It generates self-reflection: because you are carefully considering what you are writing about, your mind is able to focus on the content. This means you are given time to think about your job, relationship, hobbies or whatever else you are jotting down.


For more information on Waikoa Island and its stamps, please visit the Waikoa Island website:  http://www.angelfire.com/country/mevu/Waikoa-1.htm

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Waikoa Island 2020 Letter-Writing Week, minisheet.

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