Embossed escutcheons on revenue stamps from the 18th and 19th Century

Images made through a microscope. All subject types.

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rjlittlefield
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Re: Embossed escutcheons on revenue stamps from the 18th and 19th Century

Post by rjlittlefield »

More great info and images -- keep 'em coming!

For me the inverted stamp was momentarily concave, but it popped convex within a couple of seconds and now it is stubbornly stuck there, with the light coming from the bottom.

--Rik

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Re: Embossed escutcheons on revenue stamps from the 18th and 19th Century

Post by Iainp »

Thanks!
Here's the next offering, but first I thought you might like to see the context for the escutcheons.

Here are two 6 pence embossed stamps in my collection which are on piece.

6d embossed stamps
6d embossed stamps

You'll notice there are no escutcheons on the stamps. If you remember from the first post here that embossed stamps were stuck on vellum documents soon after the introduction of Stamp Duty by royal decree in Britain in 1694, and that the escutcheon "staple" was only introduced in 1701 to prevent people removing the stamps for fraudulent purposes, and therefore you realise that this document must be pre-1701 and post 1694, it shows you are really paying attention in class and deserve a pat on the back!

The indenture is signed 24th February, 1699. This is a little misleading, though, as in Britain up to 1752, the year ended on 24th March, not December 31st, so this February 1699 document is actually older than one produced in, say, April 1699.

Pre-1752 years with dates in January - March are often designated O.S. (Old Style) or N.S. (New Style) to avoid confusion.

Here's the earliest one in my collection with an escutcheon on, signed 1710. You can see why escutcheons get overlooked when the documents are as beautifully made as this one is.

1710 indenture document on vellum
1710 indenture document on vellum

The Coat of Arms is that of Queen Anne (1707 - 1714). Edit: to be specific, she was Queen of England, Scotland, and Ireland between 8 March 1702 and 1 May 1707. On 1 May 1707, under the Acts of Union, the kingdoms of England and Scotland united as a single sovereign state known as Great Britain. (Wikipedia)

1710 document coat of arms, Queen Anne
1710 document coat of arms, Queen Anne

The stamps are rather faded and a little "rubbed" but considering they are over 310 years old, that's not really surprising. These Die H VI value stamps were produced from February 1700 (N.S.) to November 1711.

VI Pence stamps
VI Pence stamps

And now the escutcheon, which is also showing its age. It measures 4.4mm x 5.7mm and only captures the 2 letters S and O from the motto of the British chivalric Order of the Garter "Honi soit qui mal y pense" which is a Middle French maxim, meaning "shamed be whoever thinks bad of it", usually translated as "shame on anyone who thinks evil of it" (Wikipedia).

It's a stack of around 50 images in Zerene. I was only using natural light, and the sun kept appearing and disappearing behind thin cloud. The images were mostly overexposed or underexposed, and I thought the stacking would be a failure, but amazingly, Zerene took it all in its stride, and the result is much better than I could have hoped for.

Motto
Motto

The diameter of the O is 1.4mm and the dot is 0.34mm

S and O close crop
S and O close crop

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Re: Embossed escutcheons on revenue stamps from the 18th and 19th Century

Post by Iainp »

Here's another very early embossed stamp.
According to "The Impressed Duty Stamps of Great Britain" Frank, Schonfeld & Barber (1981) this 2 Shilling & 3 Pence die was in use from 1712. This Coat of Arms was used by Queen Anne from 1707 - 1714. The cypher stamp on the back of the document which secures the ends of the escutcheon, however, is from the reign of the next monarch, King George I (1714-1727).

The cypher stamp was in use from 1725 with its last use sighted in 1731, so the embossed stamp, and the escutcheon must date from 1725 at the earliest and no later than 1731, probably late 1720s, so it's nearly 300 years old.

King George I cypher label
King George I cypher label

There's very little to see on the stamp in direct light:

II Shillings III pence embossed stamp
II Shillings III pence embossed stamp

but in oblique light the detail jumps out:

II Shillings III pence embossed stamp, Oblique lighting
II Shillings III pence embossed stamp, Oblique lighting

The escutcheon was captured with around 30 images using the same set up as the previous examples, and stacked in Zerene. The only addition was some tracing paper around the microscope to soften the sunlight, which was the only light source, and some tin foil on the other side to fill in the shadows a little.

Lion detail
Lion detail

At the risk of losing the audience altogether, I'll mention blazons. A blazon is the formal description of a coat of arms, flag or similar emblem. The blazon for the detail in the escutcheon is: "three passant guardant lions of England" (three lions walking, with the right fore paw raised and all others on the ground, heads turned to full face) and "rampant lion and double tressure flory-counterflory of Scotland."
A rampant lion is a lion standing upright (on one or both hind legs) and the forelegs are raised, claws unsheathed, as if to strike.
You may not know the word tressure but I bet you have one in your pocket right now. It means a thin border inset from the edge of a shield ,and it also refers to the thin raised part around the edge of a coin, originally used to prevent fraud by stopping people scraping pieces off gold and sliver coins. The border here is double, and has fleurs-de-lis (flowers) set in alternating directions, hence double tressure flory-counterflory. Enough!

Blazon
Blazon
Last edited by Iainp on Sun Feb 14, 2021 7:17 am, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: Embossed escutcheons on revenue stamps from the 18th and 19th Century

Post by Iainp »

I bought this stamp because the escutcheon detail looked good, and so it turned out to be!

This £1/15/- die E, (Barber # 1) was used from 1817-1890 but the George III cypher label (plate 2, 3rd recut) on the back narrows the date range down to between 1819 and 1825.

£1/15/- embossed stamp
£1/15/- embossed stamp

There is a lot of fine detail in the thistle leaves and in the partial crown, especially in the fur (ermine) edging to the circlet.

Escutcheon detail
Escutcheon detail

And now, rotated 180 degrees:

Escutcheon detail rotated
Escutcheon detail rotated

The escutcheon measures about 5.4mm x 7.5mm so the rectangular jewel on the left is just 0.95mm wide

Escutcheon detail crop
Escutcheon detail crop

And the central leaf is 3mm long and 1.75mm wide.

Escutcheon detail leaves
Escutcheon detail leaves

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Re: Embossed escutcheons on revenue stamps from the 18th and 19th Century

Post by Iainp »

There are over 10,000 different dies for these embossed stamps, if you include all the variations, and identifying them can be quite a trial. Luckily "The Impressed Duty Stamps of Great Britain" Barber et al (1981) lists them in order of the tax duty payable, starting at ½d and all the way up to £50,000. What could be simpler?

It still took 15 minutes to find this one in the book, as I was labouring under a misapprehension, which is obvious once seen.

Pre decimalisation in 1971, the British currency was £sd (or Lsd) spoken as "pounds, shillings and pence".
There were 12 pence to a shilling and 20 shillings, or 240 pence, to a pound. A guinea was 21 shillings, ie one pound and one shilling.
It's not quite as crazy as it sounds:

"The perceived advantage of such a system was its use in some aspects of mental arithmetic, as it afforded many factors and hence fractions of a pound such as tenths, eighths, sixths and even sevenths and ninths if the guinea (worth 21 shillings) was used. When dealing with items in dozens, multiplication and division are straightforward; for example, if a dozen eggs cost four shillings, then each egg was priced at fourpence. Basic addition, however, could be more difficult than using a decimal system." (Wikipedia).

Armed with this knowledge you have everything you need to solve the puzzle. If you can work out the correct tax value in less than a quarter of an hour, you are cleverer than me...

It's rather rubbed, but still readable in oblique light:

Embossed stamp shillings and pence
Embossed stamp shillings and pence

The answer:


I thought it was 1 shilling and 6 pence but there was nothing like it in the book under that value. The original collector I bought it from had listed it as having a face value of 3 shillings and 6 pence tax, but that's not right either. You have to add up all the values, including around the edge, giving you a total of...

...6 shillings. And there it is in the book. It has a G embossed on it, so we know the stamp was registered for use in 1794 and the last record of its use was 1796, in the reign of George III.

6 shilling embossed stamp 1794-97
6 shilling embossed stamp 1794-97


Now to the escutcheon. The detail shows the seeded centre of the traditional floral heraldic emblem of England, the Tudor Rose.
The image is composed of 2 sets of around 50 images each, stacked in Zerene, then the 2 results stitched in ICE, as the 8mm x 3.3mm piece was too large to capture in a single FOV with the 4x objective.

Seeded centre of Tudor Rose escutcheon
Seeded centre of Tudor Rose escutcheon

The individual seeds are between 0.5mm and 0.65mm in diameter


Seeded centre of Tudor Rose escutcheon, crop
Seeded centre of Tudor Rose escutcheon, crop

As you might expect, it works really well rotated. This is the only example I can switch to and from concave and convex.
Presumably it's easier because it's an abstract shape.

Seeded centre of Tudor Rose escutcheon, rotated
Seeded centre of Tudor Rose escutcheon, rotated
Last edited by Iainp on Tue Feb 16, 2021 2:12 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: Embossed escutcheons on revenue stamps from the 18th and 19th Century

Post by rjlittlefield »

That is without a doubt the strangest labeling system I have ever seen.

I do not see any consistent order in the numbers. It looks like shillings and pence are randomly interspersed. Do you have any idea why this is?

This one stayed concave for longer than the others. Then it shifted convex and now stubbornly stays there. I feel like my perception system is letting me down. It should show me whatever I want to see!

--Rik

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Re: Embossed escutcheons on revenue stamps from the 18th and 19th Century

Post by Iainp »

rjlittlefield wrote:
Tue Feb 16, 2021 8:48 am
That is without a doubt the strangest labeling system I have ever seen.

I do not see any consistent order in the numbers. It looks like shillings and pence are randomly interspersed. Do you have any idea why this is?

This one stayed concave for longer than the others. Then it shifted convex and now stubbornly stays there. I feel like my perception system is letting me down. It should show me whatever I want to see!

--Rik
Indeed Rik. I'm going to guess that each time the Tax Duty went up, they added another amount onto the die to save them having to start from scratch, but that would presume that they left lots of "space" around the initial amount, ready for future increases, but I don't see evidence for that in the stamps I've looked at so far. The very helpful and knowledgeable person I buy most of my stamps from will surely be able to answer. Back soon...

PS, re the illusion: yes, we are used to effects we can switch back and forth with, once we see what's going on, but this one seems to be so "hard wired" that it's almost impossible to overcome!

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Re: Embossed escutcheons on revenue stamps from the 18th and 19th Century

Post by iconoclastica »

rjlittlefield wrote:
Tue Feb 16, 2021 8:48 am
This one stayed concave for longer than the others. Then it shifted convex and now stubbornly stays there. I feel like my perception system is letting me down. It should show me whatever I want to see
My impression is that my visual system makes additional details fit into the chosen model. On the first page of this thread, "flower detail rotated 180 degrees" is inconsistent to me. I noted it makes a difference whether I scoll upward or downward into view. The topmost flower leaf is the most convex looking detail for me. When I prime myself by fixing it for a couple of seconds and then slowly take in the rest of the image, the whole image steadily shows as convex. If on the other hand I prime myself om the bottom petals, the images turns and stays concave. Apparently the impression of the non-rotated flower is so much clearly convex that it cannot be popped in.

The rotated version of the "Seeded centre of Tudor Rose" is less consistent. Here too, when I prime myself on the top seeds, the image becomes convex. However, when I prime myself on the bottom seeds, it either becomes concave, or a third intermediate state, which is 'flat disks with edges coming up', much like 1980-ies' bronze sculptures. And it's not that steady and may pop unvoluntarily. When I concentrate too much on the top seeds, they take precedence and then I can't make the image concave again for some time.

This much reminds of the old crone/young woman optical illusion. It's not hard to see either, but what you see becomes dominant and then seeing the other view becomes all too hard.
--- felix filicis ---

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Re: Embossed escutcheons on revenue stamps from the 18th and 19th Century

Post by joshmacro »

I am by no means an expert, but I think that the light reflections are what are playing tricks on our senses. That seems to be causing the mind to read the image as either convex or concave. The Tudor Rose looks convex when the reflections on each "ball" are at the top. That makes sense, because we typically expect light to be coming from above us. Then the Tudor Rose looks concave when the reflections on each "ball" are at the bottom. Our brain cannot make sense of how light is coming from beneath us so it turns the image concave. Then it all makes sense to our mind because the light can still be coming from above us as it shines "into" each concave ball.

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Re: Embossed escutcheons on revenue stamps from the 18th and 19th Century

Post by Iainp »

Interesting comments. For those with time to read a 7 page research paper on the subject, this one from the July 2010 Journal of Vision 10(8):6 is very good.
For that don't here's the summary: it's complicated!
The Abstract:
'Having a prior assumption about where light originates can disambiguate perceptual scenarios. Previous studies have reported that adult observers use a “light-from-above” prior as well as a convexity prior to constrain perception of shape from shading. Such priors may reflect information acquired about the visual world, where objects tend to be convex and light tends to come from above. In the current study, 4- to 12-year-olds and adults made convex/concave judgements for a shaded “polo mint” stimulus. Their judgments indicated an interaction between a “light-from-above” prior and a convexity prior that changed over the course of development. Overall, observers preferred to interpret the stimulus as lit from above and as mostly convex. However, when these assumptions conflicted, younger children assumed convexity, whereas older groups assumed a light from above. These results show that both priors develop early but are reweighted during childhood. A convexity prior dominates initially, while a “light-from-above” prior dominates later and in adulthood. This may be because convexity can be judged relative to the body, whereas judging the direction of light in the world requires the use of an external frame of reference.'

https://www.researchgate.net/publicatio ... evelopment

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Re: Embossed escutcheons on revenue stamps from the 18th and 19th Century

Post by Iainp »

rjlittlefield wrote:
Tue Feb 16, 2021 8:48 am
That is without a doubt the strangest labeling system I have ever seen.

I do not see any consistent order in the numbers. It looks like shillings and pence are randomly interspersed. Do you have any idea why this is?

--Rik
My collector friend has replied. It seems that the apparently random amounts are a historical record of the whole 'life' of the die:

Hi Iain.
I believe the composite dies were engraved anew when they came into existence...new updated denominations weren’t added. But they had to reflect the new parliament increases on certain duties. A particular stamp was often used for a specific purpose as in the 6/- #2 which was used for deeds. So each stamp has a history of the applicable duty or tax due on the instrument over a hundred years or more. The only dies I know of that were altered/ re-engraved were various denominations of the ‘AMERICA’ stamp. When taxation in USA was abandoned in 1765 the dies were reused in
the UK but with AMERICA erased. These are mentioned in Barber.
I hope this is of some value,
Jeremy

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Re: Embossed escutcheons on revenue stamps from the 18th and 19th Century

Post by Iainp »

I've been so pleased to capture these escutcheons in (probably) previously unseen detail that I haven't paid much attention to the technical aspects of the capture, resulting in often not very sharp images and other issues like vignetting.

It's time to address that, so from now on I'll take the time to do the best capture I can with the current very simple set up.

Rather than the usual 2 or 3 panes, then, I tried this capture with 9, stitched in ICE as before, and that's helped with the vignetting a lot. Also I've stabilised the connection between camera and microscope (in less technical terms, I've added more Sellotape...).

It seems around 30 images is fine for the focus stacking so I've reduced the number of shots from about 60-80 down to around 35, meaning I can take more time with each shot. Also I used a ring light rather than natural light, which gives much more control.

It's often quite difficult to date these stamps but luckily the later ones have a Circular Date Mark (CDM) and this is dated 20th March 1863.

10 shilling embossed stamp
10 shilling embossed stamp

And here's the microscope composite:

10 shilling embossed stamp
10 shilling embossed stamp

The buckle on the garter shows well, as does the harp, representing Ireland.

10 shilling embossed stamp 270 stack
10 shilling embossed stamp 270 stack

There was a slight flap of metal bent over where the head would be on the harp figure. I bent this over using a pin, hoping to reveal the head but there was nothing underneath so it was clearly done like that when it was originally embossed. The tiny flap broke off, and you can see the pin marks where I tried to move it.
The alloy of tin and lead has the malleability of soft clay at this scale! It's amazing so many of these have survived as well as they have.

It's interesting that there are fine lines running across the metal. I haven't seen these on older escutcheons. These later Victorian Era ones were applied using a machine, so perhaps they are an artifact of that process, or of the manufacture of the sheet itself, perhaps due to it being made using a mechanised roller method rather than simply beating the metal into folded layers as with the very early ones.


10 shilling embossed stamp harp detail
10 shilling embossed stamp harp detail
And we have to finish with the rotated image, which as usual, does not disappoint! [Edit: actually it does disappoint: I'm seeing the rotated one as stubbornly convex now. I think it's due to the garter buckle being a 'symmetrical' object with no obvious top or bottom to it]

10 shilling embossed stamp rotated
10 shilling embossed stamp rotated

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Re: Embossed escutcheons on revenue stamps from the 18th and 19th Century

Post by rjlittlefield »

Iainp wrote:
Wed Feb 17, 2021 5:07 am
I'm seeing the rotated one as stubbornly convex now. I think it's due to the garter buckle being a 'symmetrical' object with no obvious top or bottom to it]
Ahh, the world is a complicated place!

For me, this last one has stayed concave for several minutes now. I've made no attempt to consciously flip it, but with the couple before this, that happened apparently spontaneously.

Going back to look again at the earlier ones, they momentarily appear concave and lighted from the top, then they pop to convex, lighted from below.

With this last one, that's not happening. I have no confidence what the driving factors are. Perhaps it is familiarity with the subject. I've spent a lot of time looking at berries and leaves, not nearly so much looking at belt buckles.

Great observation about the fine horizontal lines on the stamp. The explanation of manufactured by rolling sounds good to me.

--Rik

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Re: Embossed escutcheons on revenue stamps from the 18th and 19th Century

Post by Iainp »

Here's another reason to take a look at the escutcheons on revenue stamps: sometimes it's the only part of the stamp to have survived for two or three hundred years in good shape!

This rubbed, bent and scuffed £5 stamp dates from the late 1700s and it's in quite a sorry state, with very little of the embossed detail showing, even in oblique light:

£5 embossed stamp
£5 embossed stamp
This was part of a 3 set of £5 stamps on the same document, and the lower stamp has the same design, but with no escutcheon, and you can just make out the lion in the centre:

£5 embossed stamp with lion
£5 embossed stamp with lion

Now back to the stamp with the escutcheon on. Sadly it's a very small slice, just 3mm x 7.2mm, but that's enough to show some of the lion's body and part of the mane and bushy tail. At its thinnest, the tail is just 0.2mm wide.

escutcheon slice of lion
escutcheon slice of lion

And rotated:

escutcheon slice of lion rotated
escutcheon slice of lion rotated

Keen eyes will have spotted something unpleasant in the top left hard corner crack.
I'm hoping this is evidence of life long gone, not a recent hatching which will be infesting all my other stamps and documents....
I suppose this kind of thing shouldn't be a surprise considering the organic nature of the substrate; vellum is young pig skin or lamb skin, and the stamps were affixed with fish glue.

detail in escutcheon
detail in escutcheon

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Re: Embossed escutcheons on revenue stamps from the 18th and 19th Century

Post by Iainp »

Here's the remaining stamp in the set of 3 x £5 stamps in the previous message.
(https://www.photomacrography.net/forum/ ... 22#p271322)

The stamp is in even worse condition than the other 2, in fact it's so bad I haven't been able to completely ID it yet, though it certainly dates from the reign of King George III, and the date range is between c 1790 and 1797.

£5 embossed stamp
£5 embossed stamp
I rate the escutcheons between 1 Star (very poor condition, and / or low levels of interesting or useful detail) and ***** (rare and / or excellent condition and / or showing excellent levels of detail, or in some other way special or unusual).
This is a certainly a 1 Star!
It's small, very tarnished, split down one side, and showing only small amounts of detail, yet it still has something to offer, I'd say. The lion at the bottom is still recognisable, and some of the scroll work survives:


Escutcheon on £5 stamp
Escutcheon on £5 stamp

The Fleur-de-Lis by the lion's head (the stylised 3 petal flower on the left side of the frame) is just 0.3mm x 0.5mm


Fleur de lis
Fleur de lis

The other "stamp" seen next to the stamp is the price tag of the vellum piece.


price stamp on vellum document
price stamp on vellum document

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