The "relief coat of arms"


Between the less studied and valued varieties of the first issue we find what is defined the "coat of arms in relief" ("Unterlegte Mittelstücke"): in this case too the national catalogues disregard completely this variety while it is carried by some Austrian catalogues.
It consists in a printing of the central shield very much pronounced and mixed up in comparison with the drawing parts around it to the point to give to the viewer the feeling that the central drawing itself is in relief.
Technically is not so clear how this has been obtained, as per somebody interpretation it may be some planned trial. Sometimes only the central shield is very evident, other times all the drawing looks inked in abnormal way.
Despite the pieces having this particularity are not so rare, it's not so easy to find some with this effect very evident. It is known on all the pieces of the first issue with the exception of the 30 and 45 centes of the II type.
Here is a picture of an Austrian piece that presents very clearly this variety, of a piece heavy inked (Fig. 1 e 2) and of some pieces of Lombardy-Venetia (Fig. 3-4-5), with the note that is very difficult to obtain a scan that can represent precisely this effect.

Austrian piece
All inked
Fig. 1-2: a couple of the 3Kr of Austria with the coat of arm clearly in relief
and a 15 centes with all the drawing heavily inked
(Pictures extracted from "Catalogo Ferchenbauer" ed. 2000)


15 centesimi
45 centesimi
45 centesimi
Fig. 3-4-5: a 15 centes and two 45 centes that show the central coat of
arms in relief and clearly more inked than the drawing around it