| It is important to know what equipment the
printing works have. For this series the Casa de Moneda de la Nacion
did use 2 major printing methods: offset-litho and typography. Why for
a certain face value both had been in use in unclear. We do not find
an answer in Pettigiani's book.
Offset-litho had been in use since 1913 - one of the first - if not the first country using that printing method for postage stamps! Pettigiani mentions "2 presse": the "Man" (Roland Man??) delivering 1000 sheets/hour and the "Crabtree" delivering 1500 sheets/hour. De Luca refers to an English press acquired by the Casa de Moneda on the 25th of October 1913. To compare with what was possible in these days http://www.manroland.com/com/en/augsburg.htm : In 1911 the "Roland" - the very first offset sheet-fed rotary press -is presented at the Turin Fair, where it is awarded a gold medal. This press was made in Offenbach, Germany". "The 1922 new single-colour offset press Klein-Roland 00 enables production of up to 5,000 sheets per hour. " In 1908 after a merger the Maschinenfabrik Augsburg-Nürnberg AG. Hence the name MAN. In 1920 MAN is incorporated into the Gutehoffnungshütte group of companies; new: sheetfed offset presses. In 1921 new: webfed offset presses . And in 1931 the first high-performance, rotary webfed press with an output of 25.000 16-page newspapers per hour. From the mid-1920s, printing press development in Offenbach moved rapidly forwards. The first German high-speed offset press was built in 1925, one year later a perfecting press, and in 1928 a two-color press that was to have a great influence on the future of offset press engineering - the common impression cylinder design. Caspar Hermann was one of the pioneers of modern offset printing and dedicated his life to research. As opposed to other printing press manufacturers, the then Vomag company in Plauen specialized in building web offset presses from the outset. In 1913, Hermann was persuaded to go to Plauen where he advanced the construction of web and sheetfed offset presses and made Vomag the leading manufacturer of offset presses in Germany. As M.A.N. started manufacturing offset presses in 1920, Hermann took his expertise to Augsburg, worked there as an instructor, and helped to build the first M.A.N. web offset press in 1921. |
| ... A 1928 Roland 2-colour press:
from the same source as in the previous posting. |
| ... The Crabtree indeed comes form an
English firm named "Crabtree of Gateshead": http://www.crabpress.co.uk/Crabtree_of_Gateshead_history.html
More information of when the "M.A.N." and the "Crabtree" actually arrived in the Casa de Moneda would be welcome. 1935 is more than 20 years after the fist acquisition of an offset-litho press! |
| .... Typography had long been made from
flat-bed presses. The first reel-fed press stems from Goebel AG ,
Darmstadt, Germany. The name Goebel is quite confusing as we find both
Goebels and Goebbels in the book!
Thanks to Tony Rubiera I got confirmed my information that the Casa de Moneda was in touch with the German printing press manufacturer Goebel AG of Darmstadt, Germany. Citing from De Luca: "Two color typographic rotary press 'Goebel' model B.P.M. used by the Mint (Casa de la Moneda) to print postal stamps. It was acquired in 1935, even if installed in its printing shop (taller) since November 1930 in test mode (a titulo de ensayo)."
This had to do with typography so far. Outisde the scope of the P&R I series as no photogravure had been used: I had heard about some 35 years ago as I was studying the stamp printing history of the Leiden based firm "Nederlandsche Rotogravure Maatschappij". [b]Leiden is my home town by the way! And I was born there too... In their archives I found several stamps/essays related to Argentina and Mexico a.o. The NRM was instrumental in promoting the new types of rotary presses the Goebel AG was producing! Mainly for photogravure and recess but as they were into to typography a lot earlier also typography rotaries... However, as J. Merlo is stating in his book, the Casa de Moneda did not buy a photogravure rotary in Darmstadt but a sheet-fed press from the German firm Mailänder in Stuttgart in 1938. Still they did buy a Goebel 4-colour reel-fed rotary press in 1968 with the options to have the perforations done in-line - that is a perforator affixed onto the press. It is stranger that the Goebel had been mainly used for definitives - not in multicolour [!] - and hardly ever for commemoratives. Most definitives of the Proceres y Riquezas set in photogravure had been printed on the old sheet-fed machine with the direction of printing and the direction of paper perpendicular to each other. Occasionally the 2 directions can be found parallel! After 1968 the systematical use of the Goebel for definitives was responsible for the introduction of an alternative stamp size! A slightly longer oblong stamp size that can be found for several definitives of that period. And what was just described as a change of the size of the stamp design [!] which it was NOT! It had to do with the new Goebel reel-fed photogravure rotary press...[/i] |
| ... Pettigiani also mentions the use of an
hybrid form of typography and offset-litho called "hueco-offset"
introduced around 1946.
I have already mentioned the reference Samuel Klass made to this type of printing process: In Samuel Klass 1970 "Catalogio de sellos postales de la Argentina" on page 236, he uses the term "huecoooffset"in relation to the 5c Jose de San Martin of 1945.
Googling the term I only come across a few old references - all in Spanish of course - to multicolour printing in the period of 1946-196x... Later references mention that this is the same as dry offset or laser prepared plates for offset. Of course we could not expect laser beams in 1945!!!! Searching for "dry offset" it turns out to be typography with an intermediate cylinder like in offset. In other words indirect typography better known by German stamp collectors as "Letterset". http://bdph.mediagrafix.de/forum/showthread.php?t=3058&page=2 Do we have any references in the Argentina literature of this "indirect typography" or hueco-offset??? Pettigiani says we cannot differentiate the 2 methods - offset-litho and hueco-offset! |
| ... Thanks to Jorge from Chile we know that
the plates are typographical:
[quote="jorgesurcl 13 Sep 2009 23:15"] Hola En un libro llamado "Memoria 1963-73" de Casa de Moneda de Chile, encontré unas imágenes (diagramas) que muestran la diferencia entre el Offset normal y el Offset Seco (Dry offset). En el Offset seco, la plancha tiene relieve (como en la Tipografía). Con ella entintada se imprime sobre un rodillo de goma que a su vez imprime el papel. Este sistema no utiliza agua para mantener la plancha húmeda. Los diagramas:
Esta página (de la Memoria) fue impresa en "Dry Offset":
Saludos Which confirms my thoughts about the dry offset being indirect typography in fact so we rather call it offset-typo instead of offset-litho! |
