[Illustration: Stamp, "Halfpenny Postage"]

[Illustration: Stamp, "Heligoland", 2 Pfennig]

[Illustration: Stamp, "Bayern", 1 Kreuzer]

Embossing is usually combined with typography. The surface of the die
being inked, that part of the design is printed in color at the same
time that the rest is embossed. These three stamps show this class of
work, one being an envelope stamp with the head deeply embossed. The
Heligoland stamp like all the stamps of that island is in the local
colors, red, white and green, of which the inhabitants are so proud. In
the case of the Heligoland and Bavaria stamps the entire sheets are
embossed at one time and not each stamp singly, as is usual.

[Illustration]

Some curious varieties of this sort of printing are found among the
early issues of Peru. The machine in use there printed the stamps one
at a time on long strips of paper. When the end of a strip was reached
another was attached to it with gum, in order that the process might be
continuous. It frequently happened that an impression was printed upon
or partly upon the overlapping ends of the strips. In the course of time
these ends became separated and thus we find stamps embossed partly with
and partly without color and occasionally entirely without it.
Philatelists call these varieties semi-albinos and albinos. The latter
term is also applied to envelope stamps which have been embossed without
the die being inked.