The Integral Booklets of the 1967-1973 Centennial Issue Part 1
Today, I start to examine the integral booklets that were produced for this issue. They are called "integral" because the booklet covers were a single piece of cardstock, which was folded, and the booklet panes were glued onto the cover using the tab of the pane, rather than being either stapled or stitched. They were also significant as they were the very first time that se-tenant combinations of different designs and denominations were to appear in the same booklet pane. The printing technology required to accomplish this was in the hands of the British American Bank Note Company (BABNC) rather than the CBN. So the introduction of these booklets marks a unique period in Canadian stamp production in which two different printing firms collaborated to produce a Canadian stamp issue. Prior to this, every issue of Canadian stamps was printed by one firm or another, but never two firms at the same time. These booklets are also interesting in the sense that they are the first bo…