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

Today's post is the last before I start a series of posts to bring all of the information that I have discussed in my previous posts together, to produce a comprehensive listing of all known varieties of each denomination in the issue, as well as to give tips for sorting large quantities of mint or used stamps with maximum efficiency. Before I get into that however, there is one last aspect of this issue that I need to touch on: the postal stationery.

The postal stationery of the 1967-73 Centennial issue is a very complex field in its own right, and contains some of the rarest and most sought after items in this issue. It consists of:


Pre-stamped envelopesPrivate-order stationeryElection envelopesLetter sheetsAerogrammesPostcards I only have a few items in stock and there are only a limited number of images available online for me to illustrate the complexity of this material. Consequently, today's post will serve as a brief introduction to this material. Then, as I get more m…

Today's post will examine the coil stamps that were produced for this issue. Generally, coils were only produced for the first, second and third class local, and forwarded letter rates. Prior to this issue, most coils were sold in vending machines, but starting in 1969, with the 6c orange, coils were produced in rolls of 100 and sold to the public in this form, with free plastic dispensers.

The coil stamps were all printed by the Canadian Bank Note Company. They can generally be divided into two groups:


The initial issue printed in imperial dimensions, which consisted of the 3c, 4c and 5c. These were printed in rolls of 500 stamps each, with starter strips at the front of each roll that consisted of 10 blank, stamp sized cream coloured labels.  On the end of the roll, after the 500th stamp, would be an end strip consisting of 10 stamp sized blank, coloured labels. The colour could vary (yellow on the 3c and pale red on the 4c for instance). The denomination of the stamp was usuall…