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A piece of moistened paper is carefully laid over theplate and both are passed under a felt roller under pres-sure. The paper is forced into the crevices of the plateand picks up the ink. The sheet of paper is now laidcarefully aside to dry. Eventually it is pressed flat andmade ready for the perforating machines. If produced ina rotary press, the paper is dry and all of the operations described are done mechanically, the finished stampscoming from the presses in a continuous roll. This method of printing leaves lines of ink in varyingdepths—as they may have been engraved by the engraveron the original die—and because of this third dimension,the result is particularly pleasing. The tones and shadowsare deeper and richer than can possibly be obtainedfrom any method of relief or letterpress printing. Thisin itself is a considerable safeguard against the counter-feiter for he cannot duplicate this depth of ink without,in fact, actually using the identical method of printing.It is readily seen how difficult such a process would be.He cannot successfully reproduce the original die for thisis completely handwork and, as every student of art iswell aware, each artist leaves some mannerism peculiarto his work on each engraving he does. |
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