Martin Mörck Marks 2 Milestones
Two 1,000th-stamp milestones were celebrated recently, and one person was involved in both – the incomparable Scandinavian engraver, Martin Mörck.
At the Great American Stamp Show, held in Cleveland this past August, Faroe Islands Post unveiled their 1,000th postage stamp issue, released as a component of a souvenir sheet. The first-day ceremony was held on Thursday, August 10th.
Renowned Faroese artist Edward Fuglø, who has created the artwork for many Faroese stamps, designed and illustrated the sheet, which depicts a cairn – a rock pile created as a signpost or landmark – in the Faroese outback, along with some mountain peaks and a sunset. A closer look reveals, also, a butterfly, a faerie, and a water kelpie (a supernatural shape-shifting spirit, usually depicted as a black horse-like creature).
The sheet was printed by a combination of offset lithography and intaglio or recess printing. The cairn and the butterfly were engraved by Mörck, and are the only engraved elements in the design.
The second stamp issued at the Great American Stamp Show 2023 was released the next day, August 11th, and featured another souvenir sheet containing a single stamp. This stamp marks Martin Mörck’s 1,000th engraved stamp design, a milestone rivaled only by the late Czesław Słania. Those 1,000 engraved designs have appeared on 1,160 stamps (8 of them vending machine stamps, or franking labels) issued by 28 postal administrations.
The design of this stamp comes from a 1933 Faroese painting by Danish artist Emil Krause titled, “Returning from Fishing.” And just as Czesław Słania’s 1,000th stamp was the largest hand-engraved stamp, at 75 x 55mm, when issued by Sweden in 2000, Mörck’s milestone stamp has now assumed the mantle of the largest ever engraved, with dimensions of 82 x 62mm.
Mörck also designed and illustrated the cachet and cancellation of the FDC. The cachet depicts Mörck engraving his 1,000th stamp, while the first-day cancel pictures a burin inscribing the numeral 1000. The first-day cancellation city is Klaksvík, where Krause’s original painting is located.
The sheets can be ordered from the Faroe Post website. The prices are 50 DKK (Danish Kroner) each, which converts to €6.69, or USD 7.15. You can find the Faroe Post website through this link: https://en.stamps.fo/ShopItem/FDC/0/FFU020823