Friday 14 June 2013

Stamps with Micro text Printing

Category - Sight
Subcategory - Stamps Security with micro printing

Micro printing is an anti-counterfeiting technique and involves printing a text, picture/logo placed in an inconspicuous location, too small to be read or seen with the naked eye. When scanned/copied it is very difficult to reproduce accurately. Micro printing commonly found in Ukraine and USA stamps which include the designer's name, issue date or the acronym of the printing company hidden somewhere on the stamp.

Canada 2012 Beneficial Insects - Bees (3rd Series) with Microprint icons on the stamps



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Issue date 16 October 2012

Issued in honour of the 125th anniversary of the Royal Philatelic Society of Canada, the souvenir sheet is aimed at young, beginning collectors.  It features the 6-legged creatures chosen to take an encore in this new souvenir sheet are the golden-eyed lacewing (Chrysopa oculata), the paper wasp (Polistes fuscatus) and margined leatherwing (Chauliognathus marginatus) on 3-cent, 4-cent and 8-cent stamps, respectively.

Special additional features have been added to the souvenir sheet to make it even more interesting to a younger audience. Microtype-sized fun icons, each one depicting a benefit performed by the insects, can be found on each stamp, along with the insect’s common name in English and French.


To encourage budding collectors to take a closer look and find the icons, the low value definitive souvenir sheet is also part of the Children’s Collecting Kit that comes with a 6x magnifying glass. 

France 2012 Tropical Fishes - Miniature sheet with glow in dark image under UV




Issue date:  30 April 2012

The sheet contains four stamps–an Emperor angelfish 1.00€; a Clownfish 0.60€; a Pennant Coral   fish 0.77€; and a Leafy Sea dragon or Glauert’s Sea dragon 0.60€.  If you look closely on the top back of the bigger shark, you’ll find the words “Les fonds marins sont fragiles, protégeons-les” (“the seabed is fragile, protect it”) in microprint. (See also - Glow in the Dark Stamp Under UV Stamps - June 2013)

Hungary 2004 – History of Hungarian Chess Stamps with micro-text printing



Date of Issue 24 September 2004

The history of Hungarian chess has been put on the 64 stamp designs by micro writing as an under-print. The sheet of stamps consists of stamps with a 1,600-character study on the history of chess on each, which, read in the right order (from square A8 horizontally to square H1), contains important personalities and events of Hungarian chess spanning one thousand years from the earliest written records and archaeological finds to the present day.

The stamp design depicts a chess board showing the starting move of the so-called “Hungarian Defense”. The name derives from the correspondence chess match between the Hungarian and French capitals between 1842-1845, which ended in a Hungarian victory in both matches.

In order to easily identify the squares, the edges contain numerals on the right and left hand sides and letters on the top and bottom of the mini sheet. The lower edge has an inscription meaning “A Little Hungarian Chess History”.Source: Iván Bottlik’s manuscript.

Great Britain 2001 – Centenary of Noble Prize 

Issue date: 02 October 2001

Royal Mail used several innovative printing methods for a set of stamps issued in October 2001 to mark the 100th anniversary of the Nobel Institute and the first Nobel Prizes. It also celebrates the six categories of Nobel Prizes.

Among the six stamps issued was a 45p stamp honouring the Literature category of Nobel prizes. The stamp features microprinting of T.S. Eliot’s poem The Addressing of Cats. T.S. Eliot won the noble prize in 1948 for the literature category.


Disclaimer - Information about the stamp issues on this page has been taken from the net and are for informational purposes only. No copyright claim is made for the above mentioned information/pictures.

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