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The London Philatelist

the help of transmission paper, the stamp’s design is introduced on the stone for the next print-run
of 200 sheets. New errors and varieties may occur and the previous ones disappear, so the most
interesting errors are those that appeared on the transmission paper at the beginning and appears
on trial prints and all subsequent ones. These are, however, few. Quite a number of errors exist in
parts of the printings, probably only in each of the 200 sheets from a single print-run. During the
first print-run, some 1000+ sheets were printed, meaning that the stone was ground off between
three and five times.
The problems connected with errors and varieties in lithography remain open. It is questionable
whether it will ever be possible to finally solve them.

Numbers printed and colour shades.
The total number of Maribor 20 vinar stamps printed is not known. Considering the number
of post offices where it was used (see below), Hammer guesses it was between 30-50,000 (100 to
167 print sheets). We cannot contradict this estimate, although the real figure could be (much)
lower considering the number of surviving copies. It seems indisputable that only 1% or less of
used examples have survived. Hammer attributes this to the absence of collectors in smaller places
where this value was used and lack of attention to it at the time. This does not apply to Maribor
itself, which was already a location of organised philately. Thus, it is very difficult to understand
why it took 10 years to discover this stamp. It only came to light when the Post Office sold old
kiloware that contained the stamp on packet cards.
There are two groups of colour shades, with marked differences. The first can be named the
light-yellow colour with a noticeably greater part of the yellow component (the colour of the stamp
tends towards yellow). The second is the dark yellow-brown group (brown prevails). Within these
shades small differences exist. For both groups it is essential to clearly observe the presence of
yellow. If it is not there, the stamp in question is not the Maribor 20 vinar.

Iris prints.
The simplest definition of an iris print is the transition of one colour shade to another on the
same print sheet. In Priručnik, the term ‘rainbow printing’ is also used to denote this effect. Two
types of iris prints are known.
A mixed iris is only possible when stamps of different values in different colours are printed at
the same time, causing the flow of one colour to the other. This particularly causes the marginal
stamps of one value in the sheet to be in another colour (shade) compared to the remaining stamps
of the same value. Since there was never more than one value of the Chainbreaker stamps printed
in lithography from the same stone, this type of iris is even theoretically impossible for the Maribor
20 vinar stamp. There are, however, nice (rare and consequently expensive) cases of this type of iris
known for stamps printed in typography, since in some print sheets stamps of different values and
colours were printed together. Stamps with tabs of other values in different colours originate from
such sheets; a rare, if not unique, case in world philately.
A refilled iris is possible when, during the print-run, coloured ink is added to the printing plate.
The result is different shades of stamps, printed from the same plate; for instance, the upper part
of the sheet is in a lighter shade, the bottom part in a darker one. Light and dark shades can also
interchange from one to the other in the same sheet. The change of shades is usually gradual. This
type of iris is known to occur in lithography, e.g., for the 15 vinar, but in this case it is possible that
lighter and darker shades from the same sheet were caused by variations in pressure of paper against
the stone, a lack of ink, or because additional ink had to be added.
I have already mentioned two shades of the Maribor 20 vinar stamp. In contrast to many
Chainbreaker stamps, no intermediate shades exist for it. With other stamps it is often quite difficult
to decide when one colour changes into another. Intermediate shades should exist if we are speaking
of iris print. It can be deduced from the latter that there was no iris print for the Maribor 20 vinar

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