SHEET COMPOSITION AND KIND OF PAPER UTILIZED
The issue in 1850 was regarded by the I.R. –the Austria State Printing House- as provisory and experimental. For this reason, only few samples and trials were executed, as demonstrated from the remarkable variety of paper types utilized during the eight years and a half of validity of the first issue (see "TYPE OF PAPER USED TO PRINT THE SHEETS") and the progressive revision of printing methods and techniques, which brought to many modifications of the arrangements and their features.
Every sheet of stamps was divided in four quarter including 60 stamps and 4 St.Andrew's crosses each one. In the first seven row there were 8 stamps and in the last one only 4 stamps and 4 St.Andrew's crosses printed in the same color. This stratagem was used to simplify the accountancy; in this way every sheets was valued with a rounded amount of Lire: 3, 6, 9, 18, 27.
Generally the St.Andrew's crosses were printed on the right of each quarter (on the external part), this is called “I composition”; after there were printed on the left side (on the internal part) and it is called “II composition”; if printed on the center direction it is called “III composition”; the existing of the “IV composition”, all the St.Andrew's crosses on the external direction, till today has not been demonstrated.
To separate the clichè and keep them in rows were used "spacers". Sometimes happened that these metal bars worked upwards until they come in contact with the ink-roller and were printed on the margin of the stamps.
The stamps printed on the external frame show often a thick external line. This is due because of the greater print pressure on the edge of the sheets; this peculiarity is called (in German) "Randdruck".
It should be noted that marginal stamps showing a small hole surrounded by a coloured circle can sometimes be found: there were causes by the pins used to keep the sheet in position during printing.
On the center of each sheets, it was the watermark, put on vertical side that consists in the letter "K.K.H.M." (Koenigliches Handels Ministerium - Imperiale Regio Ministero del Commercio).
The watermark generally is present on 4 or 5 examples of each quarter (inclusive the St.Andrew's crosses if printed on the internal part of the sheet).
The water-mark could be placed in 4 position:
- reading upwards; - reading downwards;
- reading upwords but reversed; - reading downwards but reversed.
TYPE OF PAPER USED TO PRINT THE SHEETS
The type of paper could be divided into 2 groups:
1) hand made paper;
2) machine made paper.
The hand made paper was utilized since 1850; it was white regular color with a thickness of 0,08/0,09 mm (medium/thin type).
From April 1851 the paper became more wrinkled, often with a web aspect (in transparency) but with the same thickness (a part some pieces that could arrive at 0,1 mm); the color became a little more gray / yellow; after this period it was utilized another kind of paper, more thin, called "silky paper", which thickness go from 0,055 to 0,075 mm. The printing was generally worst so the Authorities go back to utilize the 1851 paper, medium thickness and wrinkled. The last "hand made” paper utilized was white, wrinkled and much more thickness (some value was 0,12 mm thickness).
For test purpose it were utilized also different type of paper or paper with particular treatment, called depending of their characteristic:
- quadrillè paper: it shows in transparency a structure like a bee nest;
- ribbed paper: with a particular vertical treatment of the stamps (vertical line each 0,3 mm); the 15 centes plate.2 starts to be printed with this treatment on February 1851, the 30 centes plate 1 and the 45 centes plate 1 on July 1851.
- laid paper, it shows on the back and in transparency 16 little "cudgel" in 2 cm of paper (the “vergatura“ is pratically a watermark);
- light laid paper, with characteristic similar to the “vergata” paper – this variety is present on hand and machine made paper (15, 30, 45 centes).
On 1854 it starts the printing on machine made paper (the reason was because of the lower cost of machine made paper (about 50%).
Here below the date of machine made paper for the different stamps:
15 centes => December 1854, 30 centes => May 1855, 45 centes => December 1856 and 10 centes => July 1857 (the 5 centes doesn’t exist on machine made paper).
The machine made paper is smooth and with a thickness of 0,08 - 0,09 mm; the structure is very regular and doesn’t exist with watermark; the characteristic is the absence of wrinkled (a pseudo water-mark can sometimes be found in the shape of seven unequal parallel lines that originated from some defect in the manufacture).
Generally speaking in the used stamps machine made paper you can see the annulment on the back side of the stamps; on the contrary you cannot see it on the back of hand made paper.