Production

Intaglio printing

Intaglio

Intaglio — line engraving, taille douce — is recess printing: ink sits in the plate’s grooves and stands in relief to the touch. It is the engraving of ABNC, Waterlow, and Thomas De La Rue portraits, and of the Imprenta de Billetes on many Colombian dates. It is distinct from lithography and offset, which do not leave that relief. A note may combine intaglio in the portrait and offset in the tints. The Giori Lincoln Memorial test note exists precisely to trial that colour intaglio press, uniface, with no serials or seals.

The Banco Hipotecario and Riohacha proofs are ABNC engraving of 1881–1883, zero serials, PMG 61. The 1945 1 peso oro is ABNC circulation, serial R 85688116. The 1980 100 pesos oro specimen is TDLR, with a SPECIMEN Nº 027 overprint. Vietnam military payment certificates, by contrast, were printed offset — four inks on the face, two on the back — without Federal Reserve Note intaglio. That shop difference belongs in the record, not as a judgement of “quality.”

The collector reads intaglio by touch and by the sharpness of the portrait, not by a flattened photograph. A chemical wash crushes the relief and costs EPQ. This collection does not publish an invented grade for sleeved pieces. The term links line engraving, proof, and obverse: the engraving lives on a specific face, with a specific serial. None of that relief is for sale.

Intaglio is not a grade either. A sharp portrait in a photograph does not prove original relief: touch and, if there is a slab, EPQ or its absence document it. The three linked pieces — Hipotecario PMG 61, uniface Giori, and 1945 1 peso oro — cover proof, press trial, and circulation, the three states in which line engraving appears in this collection.

See also: Steel/copper engraving , Intaglio / chalcography , Offset lithography

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