Plate Makeup

Plate Makeup

Intriguingly, this series was not produced in the normal manner, e.g. not by J.B.. Cooke at the Stamp printing branch. T.S. Harrison of the Note Printing Branch, Commonwealth Treasury, designed and printed them. There may have been some political infighting which avoided Cooke. All plates had bevelled edges. This was Harrison’s subsequently characteristic trademark of no jubilee lines. A boon to students of the Kgv/Roo issues.

The Plates.
1d	Four
2d	Four*
6d	Four
1/-	Four*
6d WS	Four
2/6 WS	Four

*This is conjecture. Most archival material was destroyed in 1953. Since the stamps exist, at least one plate was made! It is most likely that these denominations were treated by Harrison in the same manner as their 1d and 6d cousins, prepared for quad plate printing. BW state only one plate was made of each of these unissued values.

The layout

All plates for all denominations were created identically. A single pane of 120 subjects, organised as 12 rows of 10 (ten bob format). In the margin, of all four sides of each plate, was inscribed a piece of internal political advertising, "Engraved and printed at the Commonwealth Treasury Melbourne". Harrison was furthering his career. This style of glaring advertising was not repeated on Australian issues until, for identical purposes, the 1956 Olympic Games stamps were printed by competitors looking for a contract (Courvoisier et al). There are no jubilee lines surrounding any plate. Four plates of each denomination were made for quad plate printing. (see above and below). In the top centre of each plate made, was inscribed it’s number (1 to 4).

Quad Plate printing. A term to describe the printing of four plates at a time on a single printing sheet, often termed ‘mill sheet’. The sheets would be subsequently guillotined prior to post office issue.

Quad plate layout in printing frame. Note this is a printed sheet view. The plates were laid down (as is normal practice for all Latin layouts) left to right, top to bottom. The same approach holds true for rolled in subjects on most plates, not just this definitive series. Subjects tend to be created in the top left corner of the plate (top right corner of the printed sheet). The same holds true when we as philatelists, examine the sheets produced. We arbitrarily number from left to right. There thus arises some confusion between the printer / plate makers, and philatelists, in that their perspectives are the mirror image. As a philatelist, you can be reasonably certain, that any philatelically assigned plate ‘1’ or plate ‘a’, is rarely the first plate to be produced (in quad printings). Similarly, stamp position ‘1’ is most likely the last position created, or rolled in (for the row). In the example illustrated, if there were there no plate numbers visible on the sheet, we as philatelists would have numbered them in opposite order.