Offset Printing

World record stamp printed on ROLAND press

Thursday 21. August 2014 - To mark International Women's Day on March 8, 2014, it was a good reason for bpost to release a new stamp. This stamp shows the face of a young lady, depicted in no less than 606 words. This unique event could be listed in the Guinness World Records.

And what is also special about this remarkable stamp? It was printed on a ROLAND press. Manroland are very proud of this fact. Just like Pierre Leempoel, Manager Stamps Production, bpost Belgium (bpost).

The design technique is a “scoop”

Why did bpost made a new stamp for the International Women’s Day? bpost: “Because we consider it a diversity of utmost importance. For the design we called in the designer Ann Bessemans. She used a very special technique: a combination of gridded letters (for the lady’s face) and a digital microtext (for the background). Right away a scoop in stamp land.”

Stamp established the world record

The stamp shows 606 words taken from the The Convention on the Elimination of all forms of discrimination against women. bpost: “A adjudicator sent by Guinness World Records, counted the number of valid words. He did so with an iron hand: incomplete words and words that were too short were dropped. But we lay hold on the world record of ‘stamp having the most readable words’. We actually do not yet know if we will figure in the famous book: only a happy few survive the selection.”

Manroland press is a reliable partner

The particular stamp was printed on a ROLAND 704 3B P 2/2. bpost: “We have been using the 4 colour press since 2000. It always has been a very reliable machine and accounts for 15 percent of our production – including the stamp of the new King.

We printed 108.000 sheets of the world record stamp – with 5 stamps each. They can be used for standard letters to worldwide destinations. If you are interested, you can find them in our Filaboutiques and in our e-shop.”