Canadian Philately - The Stamps and Postal History of Canada 1851 to Present by Brixton Chrome

Last week's auction saw spiritied bidding by a small handful of customers and new participants. The auction program that I chose turned out to have all kinds of probems, but my customers were good sports and we worked through them. Of the 40 lots on offer, 36 of them sold and while the prices were soft, I was glad to see the bidders get some deals.

With the conclusion of that auction I replaced the app that did not work with a new one that is much more robust, and have put the current auction up for public viewing:

https://www.brixtonchrome.com/collections/running-auctions

All 40 lots are selected to be cover a wide range of price ranges and periods within Canadian philately. Although a few of the stamps are the more commonly seen "meat and potatoes" stamps, I try to include material that you will not see regularly on offer at marketplaces like e-Bay,

Happy Bidding!

It has been many months since I have written a post. The business went through a difficult period and I had to focus all my attention on altering the business model and surviving our departure from e-Bay.

However, I am pleased to announce that soon my postings will be able to resume, hopefully by October.

In the meantime, I am introducing a weekly public auction. It will close every Wendnesday at 8pm Atlantic time and will feature 40 different stamps, booklets or covers taken from my inventory. The lots will be carefully selected to try to give bidders a range of material to bid on, both in terms of the periods covered, and the price range of material. My intention is for people to have fun and therefore most of the lots are not too expensive. Bidding starts at just $1 per item and proceeds in $1 increments.

Check out the first auction at the link below, and watch this space for weekly announcements:

Weekly Auction, Closing August 28, 2019 at 8pm Atlantic

This week I examine the last two physical characteristics of these stamps before I get into the most significant topic of this issue, which of course is the paper varieties. The two characteristics that I discuss this week are the gum found on the stamps, as well as the chalk-surfacing found on the mid values and BABN printings of the $1.
The 10c value through $1 landscape designs are found with three different types of chalk surfacing on the paper. Two of them are very distinct and easy to distinguish, while the third looks very similar to the second. The picture below shows the first two of these types:




The first printings of the 10c through 50c that were released in 1972 show distinct vertical ribbing on the surface, as shown in the picture. It is thought that the ribbed coating was experimental and intended to see whether or not is was required in order for the ink to properly adhere. The stamp on the bottom shows the smooth chalk surfacing that replaced the ribbed coating. This…

This week I cover the aspect of the tagging on these stamps. A lot has been written in the catalogues such as Unitrade over the last 30 years about the tagging on these stamps, that did not used to receive any attention at all: namely the distinction between the OP-2 and OP-4 variations of Ottawa tagging, as well as the 3 mm and 4 mm variations. However, there are other qualities to the tagging that are worthy of attention by the diligent specialist as well. This week's post discusses two of these in depth:
1. The intensity of the tagging, as it appears under normal light, and 2. The different methods that were used to apply the tagging to the stamps.
In the case of the low value stamps printed by Canadian Bank Note Company, there are notable differences in the appearance of the tagging on the stamps. Some stamps have tagging that is very light, being barely visible under normal lighting conditions, while others have moderate tagging that is clearly visible. Some stamps also hav…

This week, my detailed blog post about this issue looks at the perforations in detail. In addition to the basic differences in measurement, all of which are listed in the catalogues there were some difficulties encountered by the CBN as this was the first time that they had used comb machines to perforate stamps. In addition, there are many instances with the sheets and the plate blocks where you can see double strikes of the comb perforator, which give some clues as to how the panes were laid out in the overall print layout. Some examples of the types of things covered in my detailed post are shown below:

Here this block shows selvage at the sides that is fully perforated through, while that at the top and bottom of the sheet shows only a single extension hole. This suggests that the panes were laid out horizontally in the print run.

On this pair you can see a clear difference in the appearance of the vertical perforations on the bottom half of the bottom stamp in the strip. This ma…

This week's detailed post about this issue explores a topic that has surprisingly received little to no attention in even the most specialized catalogues: the shade varieties. It is surprising because all but two of the stamps in this series exhibit at least two and up to 4 or 5 different subtle variations in the shades of the inks that were used to print the stamps. What makes the shade variations especially interesting to me, is the fact that many are associated only with certain printings, and certain time periods within the life of the issue, and consequently, it does not appear that they are merely just random varieties that have no significance.

In terms of colours, the orange inks seem to exhibit the most variation, followed by the blue inks. However, as I said above, all but two of the denominations exhibit at least 2 variations in shade, with the 4c Mackenzie King and the $2 Quebec being the only stamps for which I was not able to find any significant variation in the st…

This week, I wanted to do a short post about the varieties found on the low value stamps. Although Unitrade does list a few constant varieties on the 8c Queen, and a few varieties on the booklet stamps, most of the flyspeck varieties that can be found are not listed.
Generally, the kinds of varieties that you can find on these stamps fall into one of the following categories:
1. Hairlines that run vertically through the design. These usually run all the way through the design from top to bottom and one stamp can often have several. I have found them on the 2c and 6c most often, but I suspect that they exist on all the stamps.
2. Stray dots and smudged blobs that appear either in the background, or on or around the portrait. These are what pretty well all the listed varieties are.
3. Broken, damaged, or missing design elements. The broken Tiara, damaged 1, missing 1 are some of the better known ones on the booklet stamps. However, the sheet stamps can be found with damaged letterin…

In this week's detailed blog post, I tackled two topics that relate to the stamps from the 10c Forests to the $1 Vancouver:

1. The type differences listed in Unitrade.
2. The constant varieties listed in Unitrade and other varieties that can be found.

Most collectors who are relatively experienced with Canadian philately are aware that the 10c Forests, 15c Mountain Sheep, 25c Polar Bears and 50c Seashore exist printed in two types for the first perforation, being 12.5 x 12, and just the second type for the later perf. 13.3. However, what collectors may not be fully aware of is that there is also evidence to suggest that different screens displaying different levels of coarseness were used to print these stamps as well. I illustrate several examples for each value that show that generally, the photogravure printing started off coarse, with very clearly identifiable screening dots, and then later becomes very fine, with the inking appearing to be more or less solid. None of these d…

This week I begin a long series of posts that explores, in depth, my favourite definitive issue: the 1972-1978 Caricature Issue of Canada. This issue followed on the heels of the extremely popular 1967-1973 Centennial issue. Because of how popular the Centennial issue was, many collectors did not pay a lot of attention to this series, with the result that a lot of what are now known to be very scarce printings were overlooked and used for postage. This has resulted in the series being quite challenging to collect. It offers a specialist nearly everything they could want in a stamp series, including:
Shade varieties.Design type differences.Constant plate varieties.Perforation differences.Tagging differences.Paper fluorescence varieties.Other paper varieties, such as thickness, texture and coating.Line and comb perforations, as well as perforated an imperforate selvage.Interesting postal historyMultiple plates and printings of the same stamps done by 2 different printing firms.  The det…

This week's post, my first of the New Year, is the last one that will deal with commemorative issues for a while, as next week I will begin my foray into the complicated 1972-78 Caricature Issue, which I expect will be a very popular series with my readers.

This post deals with just three issues: the Earth Sciences Issue, the Christmas Issue and the Cornelius Krieghoff Issue. Collectors will already be familiar with the fact that there is the Ottawa and Winnipeg tagging on the Christmas issue, and the five constant varieties on the Krieghoff issue. However, as the detailed post on my website illustrates, these three issues are much more complicated than you Unitrade would lead you to believe.

For starters, there are the paper varieties. Each issue was printed on paper having different physical characteristics, in terms of thickness, colour, texture and weave direction. The usual range of fluorescence on the front and back of stamps are found. making for a lot of collectible varie…

This is my last post before my Christmas break, and my second last post before I get into another very long series of posts for the 1972-1978 Caricature Issue. This week, I have explored the first four commemorative issues of 1972. Like the previous issues of 1971, a good grounding in the paper varieties of these stamps will prove to be a very useful reference for the specialist of the 1967-73 Centennial issue, who is trying to sort the 1972 printings of some of the stamps from the 1971 printings, as the stamps of 1972 exhibit characteristics that were not seen on the earlier stamps.

In my detailed post I go through the usual discussions of paper types, fluorescence, gum and perforations. There are several things though about these issues that stand out:


There are more se-tenant stamps being issued again, but this time, they can only be found in horizontal or vertical pairs. There are many fewer varieties of fluorescence on most of these stamps, with most having fewer than 5 varieties…

This week's post completes my examination of the last six commemorative issues from 1971. This is the last year to include stamps with dextrine gum, and the formula for PVA gum had more or less been perfected by both the BABN and CBN by the end of the year, after several months of experimentation.

The use of chalk-surfaced paper continued and by the end of the year, only 2 stamps were issued on non-chalky paper. BABN introduced, with the last stamp of 1971, the Pierre Laporte stamp, a ribbed, chalk-surfaced paper, that continued to be used to produce the first printings of some of the 1972-78 Landscape definitives.

Fluorescence turns out to be a far more complicated topic on these issues than it has been for any other period in quite a long time. The main reason is that the fluorescence on the front and the back of the stamps varies, due to the chalk surfacing on the front of the stamps. Most issues show at least 3 or 4 varieties of fluorescence on the front, and almost as many o…

In this week's post I explore the first six commemorative issues of 1971, which comprised 10 stamps, including the "Maple Leaf in Four Seasons" which was issued over the course of the year, at the beginning of each season. 
As I note in my detailed post, 1971 was a significant year in three respects, the main one of which os that this is the first time that PVA gum is introduced to replace dextrine gum.  As we will see next week, this replacement is not completed until 1972, with two of the Christmas stamps having the old dextrine gum. 1971 was, therefore a year in which experimentation was undertaken by the printing companies to find a gum that was optimal for use. In addition to the so called "spotty white gum" that is found on a few of the stamps from this year, there were also gums with a distinctly dull sheen, which I refer to here as eggshell, and I have even discovered a small number of stamps with what appears to be almost completely invisible gum. Thi…

My apologies for being late with this week's post. I had a computer hardware disaster yesterday that saw me lose most of my data, and I spent most of yesterday trying to recover it, without any success I might add. So, I did not get a change to write this week's post until today.

Today, I delved into the last 17 stamps of 1970, 12 of which came from the Christmas issue. These issues were replete with varieties that are not listed in Unitrade, such as:


A distinct smooth/ribbed paper distinction that is found on all of the issues except for the Alexander Mackenzie issue and the Oliver Mowat issue. Additional plate flaws on the Christmas issue 5c and 6c stamps.A double print of the Canada inscription on the Group of Seven issue. Three or more varieties of paper fluorescence for nearly all the stamps listed.Shade varieties on several of the Christmas stamps and the Group of Seven issue. In addition, there are the usual variations in perforation on the stamps printed by CBN, which …

Today, I began my examination of the stamps of the 1970's with the first 10 stamps of 1970. This is one of the supposedly simpler periods according to Unitrade, with no varieties other than the basic Winnipeg tagged versions of the commemoratives being listed. 
In contrast to the previous two years, in which most of the stamps are printed on fluorescent papers, this is the first time in two years that the vast majority of the 10 stamps are printed on dull fluorescent papers, with only one issue being issued on high fluorescent paper. Despite the relatively simple appearance, it turns out that most of the issues have upwards of 6 different varieties of dull fluorescent paper. There are also the usual variations in perforation on the CBN printed stamps. When these two factors are combined, there is quite a bit more collecting scope than one would expect at first glance. 
There are not really much shade varieties to collect, nor are there any constant varieties known at the current …

Today's post completes my examination of the 1969 commemorative issues of Canada, and looks at the last 9 stamps issued in that year. Canadian Bank Note Company (CBN) printed all but two of these using either lithography or engraving and lithography, while the British American Bank Note Company printed the other two, using engraving and photogravure.  For these last 9 stamps, high fluorescent or hibrite paper is now the norm, for all except two issues: the Issac Brock Issue and the Stephen Leacock issue, which was the last one to appear on November 12, 1969. Unitrade does list a dull paper variety on the other BABN issue, the Charlottetown Bicentennial, though no other dull paper varieties, are, as yet known on the other issues. Gum and perforation displays the usual variations that were noted in the last post and there are a good number of constant varieties on the lithographed stamps. None of these were listed 20 years ago, having all reached prominence since then. So, there ma…

This week is the first of my shorter posts, which will explore the first half of the commemorative issues that were released by the Canadian post office in 1969. 1969 continues the innovation that was begun in 1968, with hibrite papers firmly taking hold as the standard paper used for stamp printing, and the prevalence of dull paper beginning to drop off. The 10 comb perforation that the BABN had introduced in 1968 is abandoned by them and replaced with a much finer 12.5 x 12 comb perforation. In terms of printing techniques, photogravure and engraving and lithography and engraving are the most common, but pure photogravure and pure lithography are used also.

Perhaps the most marked difference between the 1969 issues and the 1967 and 1968 issues is the lack of perforation varieties. Only 2 stamps of the first 6 stamps issued in 1969 have four variations of the the 11.85 or 11.95 line perforation. The remaining stamps are all only known in a single perforation. This is also the first …

It has become apparent lately that I simply do not have enough time to write my detailed blog posts, while tending to the other aspects of my business and personal life that need attention. I am finding that to complete these posts to the standard that I believe is important is taking me between 8-10 hours, which is essentially an entire day for the Canadian post and about half a day for the Nigeria post. I can only really devote a day to blogging in a week. So, my choices are basically to either change my posting schedule to once per week, or shorten the length of my posts, so that I can still deliver some content each and every week.

After careful consideration, I have decided to opt for the shorter posts. I have done some research on reader engagement, and there is quite a lot of evidence to support the notion that readers will engage better with shorter posts anyways.

So, starting with next week's post, I will be breaking the posts up into parts. 1969's commemoratives wil…

This week I turn my attention to the 1968 commemorative issues. As I point out in my detailed post that follows, this year marks the beginning of a new era in which certain aspects of stamp production that had been experimental in previous years now becomes standard practice. These aspects are:


All of the stamps printed are now in the new metric sizes, rather than the old imperial ones. Fluorescent papers are now the norm rather than the exception.Straight edged sheet stamps appear for the first time since 1934. Cello-paqs, which had been in use since 1961 are discontinued in favour of large softcover booklets for the Christmas issues. Lithography, photogravure, engraving and lithography, and engraving and photogravure all become mainstream methods of printing. Photogravure and engraving is a completely new method of printing that BABN introduces in this year, and photogravure is introduced for the first time by CBN. Prior to this almost all Canadian stamps had been engraved. In 1968,…

Today's post marks the first in a new series - one that will explore the intricacies of the commemorative stamps that were issued between 1967 and 1972, just before the next definitive issue, the Caricature issue appeared. I have elected to keep each post restricted to the stamps of just one year, so I anticipate that this series will consist of six posts.  The commemorative issues are often overlooked by specialists who think that since they were only issued for a brief period of time, and because they are aimed at collectors, that there is nothing interesting to study about them. I wholeheartedly disagree. For one thing they serve as important time markers for the various changes that the post office adopted in terms of paper, perforation, gum, ink and tagging. By carefully studying these changes in the commemorative stamps and being familiar with the dates, you form a basis against which to study the same changes that you encounter in the definitive stamps of the same period. …