100 years of Philipp Reis telephone - Germany / Federal Republic of Germany 1961 - 10 Pfennig

One hundred years ago, on October 26, 1861, Philipp Reis introduced the public to his pioneering invention - the first telephone. To commemorate this day, the Deutsche Bundespost issues a commemorative stamp. The artists invited to prepare drafts were suggested to include the apparatus made by Reis themselves as an essential element in their conception. As a base, they received the reproduction of a hand-drawn drawing of the inventor. Günther Magnus received two designs from Eduard J. Sauer, Karl Oskar Blase and graphic designers Erika and Gerd Aretz. Below were two pure portrait solutions. Since a commemorative edition with the portrait of Philipp Reis had appeared in 1952 for the 75th anniversary of the telephone, this praiseworthy draft could not be used. In the majority of the technical presentations, at first glance, there was an interesting fact in which the essential principle of branding, as in a school example, becomes obvious. All attempts to adhere closely to Reis's scheme of a relatively naive perspective, which is not without graphic charm in the meticulous reproduction of all technical details, did not lead to a final and convincing effect. This is true even where a clear effort is felt to be able to master the difficulty by tautly controlling the stroke positions. The objects resist the formative hand of the artist. They can not be so stretched into the surface that, in connection with writing and value, a final and unchangeable whole arises. They get into swimming. The works of Karl Oskar Blase make it clear what trick it takes to turn the brittle accusation into an irreproachable brand. It begins logically with the reduction to the pure orthogonal view and sets the thus resulting in itself block-like structures like building blocks from the toy box over or next to each other. He goes to any reminiscence of spatial ideas and thus creates lapidary brand structures of utmost memorability. Then he dares to jump back into a rigid cavalier perspective, but does not place the objects free in the surface, but clasps them inextricably by means of an underlying horizontal grid. It was clear that preference should be given to this superior solution. The Federal Minister of Posts and Telecommunications has approved her. The stamp has been produced in monochrome intaglio in a rich green at Bundesdruckerei Berlin.