150th birthday of Karl Marx - Germany / Federal Republic of Germany 1968 - 30 Pfennig

Karl Marx was born on 5 May 1818 in Trier and died on 14 March 1883 in London. His numerous writings, based on scrupulous and thorough studies, make him the founder of historical Marxism and scientifically founded socialism. The fact that his birthday is celebrating its 150th anniversary in May is prompted by the German Federal Post Office to issue a commemorative stamp. In this case no cumbersome consideration was needed to clarify whether a different theme had to be chosen instead of the portrait. The extraordinary characteristic appearance of the person to be honored almost made it imperative to bring his portrait to the mark. The result of the call for proposals was that it produced only drafts of this kind and not a single departure from the theme as it sometimes happens when an artist's imagination gives him ideas that go in a different direction than the preparatory reflections of others. Prof. Karl Oskar Blase, Bert Jäger and Prof. Paul Dietrich each sent a proposal. Horst A. Rischka received two different solutions from Herbert Kern. The mighty head with the luxuriant growth of the main and beard hair left few to expect as typical distinct and useful solutions. Only such were indeed submitted. It was therefore only up to the judges to find out the most salient work due to their independence and their special artistic persuasive power. The choice of the art advisory board was unanimous on one of the three proposals of Herbert Kern. The head stands on a red ground, which is overprinted to a considerable extent with a black area, so that the illuminating red appears substantially only within the face and as a narrow margin around the mark. A typographical peculiarity, which brings about a rare but very attractive artistic effect, is that the black in the area of ​​the base as well as the red background and the recessed gray font in offset printing is executed while the head also appearing black was reproduced in steel engraving , Accordingly, the black appears in two graphic techniques quite differentiated according to their effect, because the offset print looks smooth and slightly glossy, while the engraved face or line roughened and therefore appear velvety soft. The brand, which is produced in three-color offset printing and single-color intaglio printing, is once again a printed product of Bundesdruckerei Berlin.