GDR - small collection of phase prints **

small collection of phase proofs ** Michel value over €2,700.00
Immediate purchase for €102

What are phase proofs:
Anyone who enjoys picking up a brush themselves – whether as an artist or as a DIY enthusiast – knows the unavoidable truth: after the actual work, the big clean-up begins – and it sometimes costs as much nerves as the work itself. It may be a small consolation that others are suffering the same. Every industry that works with colors faces the same problem. In the printing industry, ink rollers and printing plates must be continuously cleaned to free the color wells again and thereby guarantee constant color uptake capacity and print quality. Here the cleaning is not done with rags and soap, but with dry ice, ultrasound or laser.

In stamp printing, these cleaning processes not only give us sharply defined and high-quality postage stamps. They also create philatelic peculiarities that wonderfully document the manufacturing process of a stamp. After cleaning, the cleanliness of the printing plates is first tested before the actual printing job begins. This is how test prints, trial prints or phase proofs come about.

In color printing, the design image is assembled step by step with several printing plates. So for one stamp, several inspection passes are needed – after all, every color should come from a perfectly cleaned printing plate. At the same time, the compatibility (registration) of the different printing plates should be checked. So each phase of the print is tested separately. The result are the so-called phase proofs.


Using the postage stamp issue of the GDR, e.g. (not included here) “20 Years of the Society for Sport and Technology” of the year 1972, one can visually follow the process. The stamp image of MiNr. 1777 consists of four colors: gray, turquoise blue, olive yellow and violet ultramarine.

In the first step of the printing control, only the gray color is applied to unperforated paper. It is still impossible to guess what motif this could be. The second phase proof adds gray and turquoise blue – it forms an image that could represent a rotor. In the third phase olive yellow is added. Now we already clearly recognize that it is about shipping – and that the color registration marks line up, the image parts fit together perfectly. The fourth and final phase proof shows the finished image and is – apart from the perforation – identical to the final stamp.

These phase proofs of MiNr. 1777 are, by the way, first to be discovered in the MICHEL-Germany Special 2023. To illustrate the valuation principle, we reveal their price here exceptionally: a price range of 20 to 80 euros is given. The lower price applies to the first printing phase, i.e. the “stamp” in pure gray. The value then increases evenly until the phase proof with four colors is reached, i.e. the two-color version costs 40, the three-color 60 and the four-color 80 euros. Not bad when you consider that ordinary stamps cost only a few cents.

Phase proofs, by the way, never had face value power – not even the four-color ones. They don’t have to. They’re beautiful even so.

Source Michel

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