Serration

History

Not notched and drillings

The first systems of perforation were created a few years after the invention of the first stamp, the “Penny Black”, to facilitate the work of the employees in the post offices. Those were to before cut out with the scissors the stamps in places generally lit with the Bougie, owe sometimes a file of impatient customers. A stamp not notched generally comprises, around its framework, a more or less broad blank paper margin, according to the way in which it was cut out.

Starting from the Years 1850, the postal administrations, following certain private individuals, seek more practical and fast means of separation.

In France the tax authorities, were particularly slow to decide to perforate its stamps. The first notched revenue stamps go back to 1876 (Receipts), while certain categories of figurines, those of commercial drafts it were officially perforated, that as from 1881.

The drilling or pricking consists in with a cutting blade notching the sheet in certain points. A light traction is enough to detach the stamps. It is possible to distinguish:

drilling in lines: the notches have the shape of features of separation. It was thus certain produced stamps of French strike in an artisanal way in 1971 (cf Timbres and labels of postal strike)
drilling in points: the notches are a succession of points. With the Tibet, an emission was bored using a Sewing machine.
drillings in the shape of arc, zigzag, teeth of saw, etc the Russian emission for the Finland of 1860 was thus bored in serpentines, just as in France the revenue stamps of Napoleon III, bored in serpentines by the bank Schlenker and the Crédit Lyonnais.

Processes of serration

The serration consists in removing small paper rounds between the stamps. Separation is done by drawing and tearing intermediate paper spaces. These paper bridges separate the perforated half-circles when the stamp is detached, and were called “teeth”. They constitute the serration. These stamps described as “notched” gave a posteriori their name to the former stamps: not notched stamps.

The manufacture of these sheets of perforated stamps knew various processes:

perforation on line: initially the lines of holes horizontal, then vertical are bored. She recognizes herself with the intersections where two perforations do not coincide exactly.

perforation with the harrow: the perforations are done everything of a blow and the corners have only one hole aligned well on the two axes.

perforation by comb: one perforates of a blow a line of stamps on their three respective sides. Then, one advances the sheet and one thus perforates the line of stamps following (, the fourth side omitted with the first passage. The advantage for the workshops of printing works is that they have only one line of puncher to manufacture, and not a whole sheet.

Measure serration

The serration is measured by a number which corresponds to the number of teeth on two centimetres. This number can be defined while placing the stamp on a Odontomètre, instrument invented at the 19th century by Doctor Jacques Legrand, eminent French philatelist. On the odontometer the various degrees of serrations are illustrated, as well as more or less broad points appearing the intervals between the teeth.

Varieties

The collectors can be very demanding on the quality of the teeth of a stamp: all equal, not too short, not of folding whereas it is one of the most fragile elements of the stamp. It is to prevent folding teeth, inter alia, that the philatelists use grips tweezers to catch and handle the stamps.

Certain postal administrations, according to the times, did not consider important the serration and thus notched their stamps in a different way according to pullings. Certain stamps of the Austrian emission of 1890 are known with a score of different serrations.

The mechanical operation of perforation of a Feuille of stamps can cause errors going of the imperfection (light decentring of the image, even image of the stamp touched by the holes) until the spectacular variety (serration passing in the middle of the stamps, said “piqué to horse”). To show the difficulty in distinguishing the border between these two situations, an article of Timbroloisirs of 1992 is titrated: “the badly definite border which separates the méprisables “very badly centered” from very sizeable “piqués with horse””.

The perforation by combs can be shifted of a line: the first line of stamps is thus accidentally not notched on three sides.

Normally, controls of printing works must avoid with such accidents circulating in the public, since they must be destroyed after being located and being drawn aside.

Modern not notched stamps

At the 20th century, the not notched stamps are the exception and are related to quite particular circumstances, such as for example:

the first emission of a country in times of crisis or by an independence movement,
various stamps or labels of strike emitted with haste, for the periods of interruption of the official postal service. (cf Catalogs Dallay and Cérès of 2006, Rubriques " Stamps of grève") .
the emission of prestige (centenary of the first French stamp: stamps Marianne de Gandon notched himself-holding with stamps Cérès de Barre not notched).

In addition, in certain countries, like France, its colonies or Monaco, certain leaders of supervision of La Poste received not notched pullings of the emitted stamps. It seems that these people made some profit friendly and relations, and often from it themselves benefitted, since there is a market for these stamps.

Self-adhesive stamps

With the appearance of the self-adhesive stamps, the philatelists took the practice to use the expressions like “right serration” or “serration undulated” to indicate the edges facilitating the separation of these stamps of their initial support. However, the self-adhesive side of these stamps makes that the shape of the edges whatever it is does not affect any their manufacture. Certain countries purposely take again notched edges; the self-adhesive stamp is different then from the stamp gummed by right, virgin teeth of the traces of the original tear of separation.

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