Page 16 - Delcampe Collections classiques EN-006

Stamps

A turn-up for the booklets

By Frédéric Nicolino of the ACCP (First part)

The first stamp booklets were letterpress printed on sheet-fed presses and assembled by
hand by stapling. The decision to switch from this very expensive means of production
to the more economical rotary press was taken in 1925, but the first booklets from these
machines were not produced until 1928.

1928 - The first booklets of postage stamps were printed by rotary presses

Fig.1 Fig.1 B
From 1922, the manufacturing workshop los Courmont, who was also in charge of
on the Boulevard Brune made extensive their advertisements, as well as those ap-
use of the rotary presses acquired from pearing in the stamp margins. The buyers
Chambon to print sheets and strips for dis- were enthralled, and the advertisers satis-
tributors, but the production of booklets re- fied.
mained more complex. These were always As early as 1925, the administration
printed in flat letterpress, in sheets of 240 planned to print its booklets using the rota-
stamps which were cut in half and inserted ry presses it had at its disposal (fig.1), ne-
into sheets of 6 covers to which they were gotiating with Mr Courmont to this end, as
stapled, before being folded and cut, giving shown by the following document:
6 booklets of 20. This took up far too much We learn that it initially planned to acquire
time and manpower in the eyes of the ad- a machine to print the covers itself, final-
ministration. ly discarding this idea in an effort to make
In addition, printing of the covers was en- savings, leaving the costs to Mr Courmont:
trusted exclusively to a private printer, Car-

16 Delcampe Magazine