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

Today's post will tackle the aspect of this issue that has probably received the most attention from specialists of this issue, and is definitely the most fun, but also the most confusing: the paper fluorescence. The study of paper fluorescence has been a "thing" since Irwin, Keane and Hughes, and Gronbeck-Jones published articles about this topic in the 1960's when the issue was current. However, it was, until relatively recently a fringe topic that was well outside the scope of even the Canada Specialized catalogue. I can well remember when I was a child in the early 1980's that the only paper varieties listed for this issue were plain paper and hibrite paper. However, since the late 1980's the topic of paper fluorescence has received more and more attention from mainstream philatelists, and consequently, the number of listings in the Unitrade specialized catalogue has grown considerably.

Despite this expansion in coverage, there is still, in my humble opi…