Chile 'Presidentes' Issues 1911-31

Three values from the
 original set by the
American Banknote Co.

The "Presidentes of Chile"set, issued in 1911, was produced by the American Banknote Company. The 15 stampsset  in its basic form was a superb example of the engraving and stamp production talents of that company at the time.Another seven values (colour changes plus additional values) were supplied by ABNC during 1912-13.

 

In 1915, production was taken over by the Chilean Mint.

(Based on an article by Roy Lingen.) Local production resulted in a change to typography and lithography from engraving and resulted in a number of interesting combinations of frames and centres using one of each of the printing methods.
Over the following 15 years, the stamps were redrawn, watermarked paper was introduced and many varieties appearedthat did not find their way into a listing in the standard catalogues .

Two locally printed varieties of the 10c. Notice "Chile Correos" and "Correos de Chile"

The original ABNC 25c and a locally produced (Chilean Mint) later issue.

 As an added bonus, the set was chosen for overprinting for use as the first airmail stamps (ignoring the first 1927 issue which was for use on a local Santiago-Valparaiso flight). As a result, all the interesting covers of the formative airmail years of 1928-32 bear the Presidente airmails. In my opinion, these covers are some of the most attractively franked airmail covers in the world, nearly always carrying multiple copies of different stamps in many colours.