Unusual Stamps: Printed on fabric

The following stamps have all been printed on some type of fabric

including silk, rayon, artificial silk, lace and embroidery work

Poland 1958 400th Anniversary of Polish postal service

Printed on real silk - Sc 830

East Germany 1963 - printed on woven nylon-6 fiber

Bhutan 1969 Prayer Banners - printed on artifical

silk (rayon) - Sc 105-105D

Bhutan 1969 - IMPERF prayer banner

Bhutan 1969 prayer banner - perforated - Sc 105 e

Grenada 1971 Miss World S/S - artificial silk

Grenada 1972 - overprinted for Interpex 72

Mongolia 1982 World Cup - artificial silk

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Mongolia 1982 World Cup - artificial silk

Mongolia 1982 World Cup - artificial silk

Mongolia 1982 World Cup - artifical silk

Mongolia 1982 - Italy winners - 4 overprinted sheets

Italy 2000 S/S for silk industry - silk

screened on silk - Sc 2435

Switzerland 2000 - Embroidered lace - Sc 1075

Sheetlet of 4

In contrast to stamps printed on paper, the design of this stamp is embroidered using a polyester thread on a high-quality, satin-weave polyester base. The embroidery process produces a true three-dimensional stamp. Bischoff Textil AG, who manufactured the stamp, had the thread for the whole run specially made and dyed in two tones of blue used for the design. The material made was used exclusively for the manufacture of the stamp. To produce the stamps the satin was cut into sheets 9.4 m long. Two of the Satin base were mounted on the 10 m wide SAURER Pentamat (2040) embroidery machine. 340 stamps were embroidered across the width of the satin at a speed of over 200 revolutions per minute (the needle moving forwards and then backwards). The stamps were produced row by row until a total of 20 rows had been embroidered. The light blue background was created first and then a second needle added the dark blue text, the value and the border. A total of 340 needles worked simultaneously across a width of 9.3 m. Since embroidery machines inevitably 'pull' the base material slightly the latter was stretched taut and the stamps were kept in the correct position with clips. Once the embroidery was finished all the linking threads were mechanically removed. As in the case of any piece of embroidery, minimal differences occurred owing to the number of different manufacturing processes involved. This is quite common in textile technology and means that each stamp is in fact totally unique. Almost no errors occurred thanks to continuous supervision by Bischoff's staff. Unlike normal postage stamps, small differences in appearance among the embroidery stamps cannot be termed faults or give rise to different varieties. Once this stage was complete, the rows of stamps were checked and the self-adhesive backing was added in a series of processes using a technique developed specially for this stamp. Finally, the individual stamps were electronically cut.