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

Today, I start examining the printings of one of the more complicated low value denominations in the series: the 4 cent carmine, which depicted a lock in the St. Lawrence Seaway, in Quebec. In addition to sheet stamps and coils, this stamp was also issued in three different booklets, as well as in the cello-paq miniature panes of 25, that sold for $1 each. The sheet stamps came with two different basic types of Winnipeg tagging, as well as general Ottawa tagging. It is a complex stamp, and three separate posts will be needed to deal with all the complexity. Today's post will be the first of these, and will examine all of the untagged sheet stamps.

Unitrade lists four varieties of paper for the stamps with dextrose gum, that were issued between February 8, 1967 and May 1972, when the stamps with PVA gum appeared. Two paper varieties are listed for the precancelled stamps as well. Only a single listing is given to the PVA gum untagged stamps, though as we shall see, there are sever…

Today's post deals with one of the least complicated values of this series: the 3c. One of the reasons for this is because after October 31, 1968, the 3c stamp saw much less use than it had before that date. From its issuance on February 8, 1967 until October 31, 1968, it was used to pay the third class rate. However, after this date, the third class rate was 5c, so the 3c stamp became a make-up stamp only. The only exception to this were the precancels, which were only available to select customers of Canada Post, and not the general public. So as a result, there are no PVA gum printings of this stamp, nor are there any major variations of tagging, except for the precancelled stamp with general Ottawa tagging, which was issued in 1972.

Along with the 2c, this value was issued in booklet form, and there were two major categories of 3c booklet stamp:


The stamps printed by CBN and included in the OPAL booklets issued on October 26, 1970.The stamps included in the 25c booklets printe…