NEWSLETTER1/2017

Dear readers,First let us wish you for our first year 2017 to-gether lots of health, love and time for reading. We hope that this year will be a hap-py year to the last detail…

Among others, it is a significant his-torical milestone year for our printing house, as we shall celebrate 25th an-niversary.

At such events, it is more than at other times usual to look back into history, remember the bright as well as dark moments. At the same time, it is necessary to responsibly look into the future of our almost quarter century old company.

Even though we are opening the long--time untouched door to innovation, the steady point of our work still lies in tradition, which year-by-year de-fends its valuable post first last in the world.

Bohumil Šneider (*1936)This famous engraver studied at the graphic school in Prague and has learned his profession at Zukov company. In 1969, he joined the State securities printing house as an engraver, and since 1989, he collaborates in postal stamp production in the Czech Republic and Slovakia.

When participating at the banknote production, he has cooperated closely with Albin Brunovsky. His art engravings can also be found in coins.

Now, our representative engraving has joined the group of his art work.

One would say that you would like to take a rest following your almost 50 years of the carrier. But you are still work active…It can be said that the engraving work is somehow natural for me. My brother was an engraver too, but he died young. I do not want this to sound like a phrase, but it is good this art remains within the family. And, I have always enjoyed it.

Engraving is beautiful, but for sure very difficult craft. Does the size of the engraving matters in this sense? The size does not matter that much. It is true that there is more work on larg-

er scale but some postage stamps are so delicate that one must focus much more and the whole process takes longer. Ge-nerally, it is rather about the estimate of density so that the engraving is not too curt. Simply to look good.

Which themes do you like to work with the most? Even earlier I have heard the senten-ce: “They said that you are doing ar-chitecture”. Of course, but I do it for those, who are interested. For me, I can say that from the beginning, I was always making portraits. But al-ways, I try to get used to the theme.

Karolína Zemenčíkováeditor in chief

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NEW YEAR, NEW WEB

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FROM OUR NEIGHBOURS

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SLOVAK SUCCESS

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W H E N I S TO P P E D C O M P L A I N I N G...

Ing. Miroslav KrejčíkChairman of the Board and CEO

Your suggestions are welcome at newsletter@ptcpraha.cz

© Poštovní tiskárna cenin Praha Inc. – all rights reserved.Publishing, printing, distribution: Poštovní tiskárna cenin Praha Inc.Quaterly PTC Praha a.s. | Editor in chief: Karolína Zemenčíková10.01.2016

POŠTOVNÍ TISKÁRNA CENIN PRAHA Inc.

I understand. At the end, you have managed even this uneasy theme…I think it did not end so bad. (laughter) Thanks to the fact that the proposal with Prague landmarks was approved, quite interesting contrast was created.

It was definitely a great idea. Where do you find your inspiration? My inspiration is in history, nice things, even in nature… Earlier, we called it all weed and now, I admire even the flowering meadow. Maybe the age also influence this. Now you regret, that you did not value or appreciate; sim-ply, because you did not understand. (he is thinking) One sees the world in different view… On the other hand, should we see the world this way when we were young, I do not know how this world would end up. (laughter)

This I call a successful end. Thank you for the interview. (KZ)

That is interesting. So, you do not fight theme challenges…Definitely not. I always liked history and classic art, special baroque paint-ings. But it is always necessary to think each theme over and then you may even start to like it. For example, when I was making the Max Ernest stamp, Life in a house, I was afraid a bit at the beginning, but at the end it received an award for being the best engraving transcript. That was fantastic.

For almost 30 years, you are taking part in postage stamps creation. Do you recollect the first one, when our cooperation began?Yes, of course. It is the amphibians. There were four stamps, each made by different author. At that time, the engravings for the FDC envelope were made in three colors.

You know our printing house very well. Now, you have created our own engraving. Were you happy, when we asked you to do it?Honestly. When you asked me, I was saying to myself: “Somebody wants a revenge on me” (laughter) Well, be-ginnings are generally difficult. To fig-ure out, how to interpret in engraving such modern and functionalist build-ing of the printing house, seemed at the beginning to be a great problem.

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When I visited the printing house for the first time, I was fascinated. It was and still is a magic factory for me; colossal world of ton-ma-chines, from which with huge rum-ble comes out delicate beauty on snow-white paper.

Later, I was proud when it has repeatedly made the world news and received numerous awards. The most prestigious award, in my opinion, is the WIPA Vienna award and the polygraph – master printers contest. I value that the stamps are judged by professional boards, not public popularity or internet clicking.

Czech Post will introduce a sample of top world quality in May. It shall be represented by a mini-sheet of Paolo Veronese “St. Catherine with an Angel” in unusual setting. Two stamps shall be printed in perfectly drawing black-brown engraving and two identical stamps in five-color register. We shall greatly honor the Resistance Heroes in the occasion of 75th anniversary of the Operation Anthropoid; the third, I would like to mention is this year issue of Art. This year will be full of surprises.

I would like to wish PTC Praha staff commercially successful and stamp rich year, further verified successes, only minimal loss to the printing machines and some gain to poly-graphic abilities. Good paper, good inks, topped up with traditional skills of its staff. And – good luck in

selection of stamp the-mes for the Czech and Slovak postal authorities… Success shall be inevitable.

Ing. Břetislav JaníkDirector, Stamp Design DepartmentČeská pošta, s.p.

CUSTOMER’S VIEW

Following almost twenty years of his in-volvement in postage stamp production, cooperation with renown engravers and printing of various themes, our printing house has finally got it! PTC Praha now has , also thanks to the wonderful Bohu-mil Šneidr, its own engraving.

This, in details elaborated, piece of art shall represent the printing house in all significant prints. It shall, among others, become a part of commemorative cer-tificates, awards as well as other presti-gious correspondence. And what more?

As of this moment, it shall be indis-putable proof of quality of our valued flat steel plates intaglio print.

Technical specifications

Engraving size: 120 x 85 mmPrinting process: flat steel plate intaglio Color: 1 color intaglioAuthor: Bohumil Šneider

„And when I shall praise myself a lot, I will say that I am satisfied.”

Five-color transcript of the oil-painting from the 17th century comes from Václav Fait, the engraver. The engravings came out perfect. Specially, when we keep in mind that Gerrit Dou was the master of very delicate painting, so to transform this into a set of cuts in significantly reduced format was really extremely difficult.

Least difficult is the print. Each color is printed separately and sheets are loaded manually. With the total number of twen-ty six thousand mini-sheets of the Czech issue, it made altogether with the Lichten-stein issue quite on impressive number, which checked the skills of the staff as well as the functionality of the machines.

How long did it take? First part, known among the printing masters as verification part, came to be printed in early April. Then, printing of stamps and comme-morative certificates for Lichtenstein was done. The whole production concluded in the second half of July, by second, larg-er volume of the Czech version. Almost four months of work.

Following the printing of each individu-al color, the sheet is stored for a couple of days on a drying stand. This is followed by printing of another color, drying, manual loading… And during each loading, the paper must sit at the exact same position to avoid shifting of colors. Again and again until the stamp is perfectly printed. Each sheet shall be taken by hand of the of the printing machine operator eleven times.

And to make things worse, the paper used for intaglio printing is a gummed pa-per, which is very sensitive to unstable air moisture. Those are not drastic changes, but even a half-a-millimeter change caus-es distortion of the final picture.

When we are at the differences, the two stamp versions obviously differ in the text. But when you look closer…

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G E R R I T D O U – YO U N G W O M A N O N A B A L C O N Y

The stamp is typically Czech – and yet it totally exceeds the half-a-century old tradi-tion of the Works of Art on Postage Stamps issue. Flat steel plate intaglio reproduces the art of a famous Dutch artist, Gerrit Dou, a painting, which was donated by Jan II., Lichtenstein duke, to the predecessor of the National Gallery in Prague. The selection of this theme for a joint-issue of Czech Republic and Lichtenstein is not accidental.

The abovementioned complexities of multicolor flat steel plates intaglio caused most printing houses worldwide to with-draw from this project. It is not only the printing machine, which one loads with paper, which stand behind our stamps. It is necessary to see a man behind each stamp. And not only one man. These peo-ple with exceptional abilities in PTC Praha are the ones who give the high artistic and crafts value to the postal stamps.

Would you like to learn more about this technique? Now, you have this unique opportunity. We have prepared a short video for you. Not without a rea-son, it is said that to see once is better that to hear hundred times.

Link can be found on our Facebook page and now also on our website: www.ptcpraha.cz (red)

Czech stamp was printed by 5 steel plates. For the Lichtenstein version, one extra steel plate was made. The reason for that was that the black ink print was split in two – one for the picture and one for the text, so that makes thirteen hand handling only while being printed.

It was cumbersome, but it was worth it! It was the first cooperation with Lichten-stein Post, so we impatiently waited for the response from Vaduz. It was kind.

And simple is also our summary. The record six engravings in perfect color regis-ter? More is sometime simply more.

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PTC Praha a.s. prints Slovak postal stamps since the es-tablishment of Slovak Republic in 1993, save for years 2005 – 2007, when the postal stamps tender was won by a company called Libra, which served as intermediary between Slovak Post and different European se-curities printers, like Walsall Se-curity Printers, Cartor Security Printers or Állami nyomda Nyrt. Specifically year 2005 is histori-cal milestone in Slovak philate-ly, because the philately market had collapsed and the number of registered postal stamp col-lectors has dropped from about 10 thousand to 15 hundred, be-cause all stamps issued in that year have been printed by offset.

Based on previous experience, Slovenská pošta, a.s., now ap-proaches issuing of postal stam-ps with due care. And since 2007, it has returned back to intaglio printing of postal stamps at PTC Praha a.s., which has several unique techniques available. The printing of postal stamps is also determined by economic factors, because postal stamps printed by offset are cheaper in compari-son to postal stamps printed by intaglio. In case of definite - stam-ps, these continue to be produced by rotogravure, which is cheap-er and based on this technolo-gy the new issue line of one-eu-ro definite stamps “Slo-vak Cultural Heritage” is based.

Mgr. Martin Vančo, PhD.Head of Postal philatelist services

Slovenská pošta, a.s.

CUSTOMER’S VIEW

Slovak postal stamps have celebrated a success in Beijing, where the 12th „China Annual Best Foreign Stamp Poll“ took place. Slovenská pošta re-ceived two world famous awards at this prestigious event.

The Alfons Mucha stamp from the Art issue printed in 2015 received first place in the Best Printed Stamp category.

It is engraved transcript by Franti-šek Horniak, who processed the only monumental painting of Alfons Mucha located in Slovakia. The victory of the Slo-vak postal stamp

in this prestigious category is also valuable prove of quality for our print-ing house. This stamp was printed by the traditional flat steel plate intaglio in combination with modern offset.

The issue published in 2015 for the 550th Anniversary of establishing the Academia Istropolitana won the first place in the World Best Minisheet cat-egory. Dušan Kállay is the author of the design, which was inspired by the illu-minated decorati-on of two contem-poraneous codes originating from the Bratislava Chapter. The engraving was also made by František Horniak.

Our congratulation goes to Slovenská pošta and we hope that these awards are definitely not the last ones. (red)

Our questions will be answered by Czech artist Jan Kavan, the chair-man of the Postal stamps art design committee.

We shall look back at the last issue of the Art on Postage Stamps in 2016, which was printed by the combination of flat steel plate intaglio and offset.

NEW YEAR, NEW WEB Our new website are born! Our goal is to create a well-arranged space – our shop window. From now on, we will not be only writing, we will be showing more. Currently, but traditionally, directly from the heart of our printing house. You can check yourself once the testing of the website is completed. (red)

STAMPS FROM OUR NEIGHBOURS

authority has the opportunity to pre-pare one or two frame presentation with adjusted postal stamps issued in last three years prior to the event. Besi-de the uniqueness of presentation, the main evaluation criteria are technical quality of the presented material, its functionality in postal usage, general interest in postal stamps in the public interest or charity. Finally, the board of experts also evaluates the equilibrium between text information and present-ed material, readability of the informa-tion and aesthetic impression.

First event of this type was organized in the year 2008 at EFIRO exhibition in Bucharest, and Slovenská pošta, a.s. has won five times: in 2010 at exhi-bition in Lisbon, Portugal; in 2012 at 25th UPU world congress in Qatar; in 2014 at MALAYSIA 2014 exhibition; in 2015 at SINGAPORE 2015 exhibi-tion, and last at World Stamp Show NY 2016 in New York.

IN YEAR WE MADE IN NOMINAL VALUE

2016 152 089 373 POSTAL STAMPS 107 558 155 EUR

Do you want to know when our new issue will be out? On you web page, you will soon find a short registra-tion form, which, if completed, shall ensure that you will be getting our Newsletter directly into your e-mail inbox.

Regular notice prior to the publica-tion of each newsletter can reliably be found on our Facebook.

Do you have any questions, comments or you would like to share your opinion with us, please e-mail us at newsletter@ptcpraha.cz (red)

SLOVAK SUCCESS IN CHINA

Slovenská pošta, a. s. emphasizes very much the presentations of Slovak stamps abroad, and the reason is sim-ple. In Slovakia, Slovenská pošta, a. s. is the only government authorized insti-tution, which can issue postal stamps, so the quality can only be evaluated

in comparison with other issuers, i.e. with other countries. One of such presti-gious events is „International Competi-tion Class for issuing postal authorities UPU members countries and their territories“, which can be called World championships of postal authorities in philately. It is organized by the Univer-sal Postal Union (UPU) and every postal

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We are here for quarter of a century. What has changed, what remained the same and what can you look for-ward to?

Mgr. Martin Vančo, PhD., Head of POFIS

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