Re-Entries and Retouches on the 1903-1911 King Edward VII Issue

As I stated in my overview post on this issue, there is probably no issue in Canadian philately that has more retouches and re-entries than does this one. The Numeral issue comes close on some values, but this issue has numerous re-entries on the 1c, 2c, 5c and 7c values. Unitrade does not list any at all on the high values, though I am pretty confident that I just purchased a mint 20c olive green that has a fairly prominent one. I will update this post once it arrives and I have had a chance to examine it.

Unitrade does list major re-entries on the 1c, 5c and 7c. In all cases, the parts of the design that are affected are the letters in the oval, which show traces of doubling. It is a bit of a mystery to me as to why Unitrade lists these as the major re-entries, when so many prominent ones exist.

The great student of re-entries, Mr. Ralph Trimble has a very large section of his website devoted to this issue. I do not intent to re-produce his work here, but rather to give an overall summary of what is found on his site. The link for his site, where you can look at all the re-entries that he has documented is:

http://www.re-entries.com/listings.html#ke7

One Cent Value

Trimble's website illustrates a number of misplaced entries, re-entries and retouches as follows:

1. A misplaced entry in which parts of the upper frameline appear in the upper margin and the thicker shading lines of the right ermine tail are shown repeated above the tail.

2.A similar misplaced entry appears in the bottom margin, where traces of the bottom of the 1's and traces of the bottom frameline are visible.

3. A third misplaced entry shows horizontal shading lines inside the white oval above the "PO"of postage as well as evidence of twisted doubling of the upper right frameline.

4. A major re-entry is shown where the top frameline, the "NT" of "cent", the right frameline and both "1's" show strong doubling.

5. Another similar re-entry is shown to the one above, except this time the letters "Canada postage" show strong doubling as well.

6. A smaller re-entry is shown in which just the tip of the right "1" is doubed, as well as the upper edge of the leaf that is located above this "1".

7. Another group of re-entries is illustrated in which the bottom framelines of the numeral boxes are doubled, as well as the bottom of the "1's" and most of the colour dashes in the King's robe.

8. Another group of re-entries shows string doubling of the upper left spandrel, and some of the letters of "Canada postage".

9. Another  subtle re-entry involves mild doubling of the left "1".

10. A strong re-entry is shown, which he calls an upward shift. Basically some of the vertical shading lines in the cross hatching of the oval protrude up beyond the oval and the upper frameline is lightly doubled.

11. Another strong re-entry involves doubling of the vertical frameline of the left numeral box.

12. A third strong re-entry is shown that involves fine doubling of both numeral boxes, the small leaves, the upper left frameline and the shading lines to the left of the portrait oval just above the left numeral box.

13. A fourth strong re-entry involves doubling of most of the diagonal shading lines above the portrait, the "ada" and "pos" and the top of the portrait oval.

The retouching that he shows on this value generally shows up as a strengthening of the outer framelines and the framelines of the numeral boxes. When you see a part of a frameline that is unusually thick, that is generally evidence of re-touching. The above is not a complete, exhaustive list of everything on his site for this value, but I think it is a good representation of what he has illustrated. Trimble himself says that the re-entries he has shown are but a cross section of the re-entries that can be found. He assets that it would be nearly impossible to obtain examples of every possible re-entry in every state of strength.

Two Cent Value

Trimble's website illustrates a large number of misplaced entries and re-entries on this value. Generally speaking, the misplaced entries involve:

1. Repetition of the shading lines of the King's beard and collar, which appear 2.5 mm lower inside the details of the cape. This is a very rare item and you can easily miss it if you don't know where to look. The giveaway is the horizontal shading lines found inside the leaf above the left numeral box.

2. Doubling of the upper frameline, the horizontal shading  lines in the left numeral box, and portions of the cross hatched shading are found inside the letters of "Canada postage".

3. Sharp doubling of the left frameline in the left margin.

4. A portion of the ermine tail above the "E" of "Cent" can be seen in the white oval below the ermine tail.

5. Doubling of the left frameline and portions of the lower oval cross hatching visible in the lower margin.

The major re-entries illustrated are:

1. Strongly doubled outer upper left frameline.
2. Strong doubling of the 2's.
3. Strong doubling of the letters "Canada Postage".
4. Doubling of the "NT" of "Cent", plus the lower right spandrel, including the numeral box.
5. Doubling of the lower right numeral box. There are several different ones shown.
6. Doubling of the lower left numeral box.

Five Cent Value

Trimble illustrates a major misplaced entry, two strong retouches and a two major re-entries. All of these except the second re-entry are listed in Unitrade. In addition, he lists and illustrates a number of other re-entries, many of which are easy to miss if you don't know what to look for.

The major misplaced entry, which is very rare, involves an outline of the bottom left "5" appearing all the way up the design in the upper left crown. It is hard to see, but the easiest way to spot it is the lines of the lower curve of the "5" appear inside the lower horizontal band of the crown, when there normally would not be anything here. A second major misplaced entry shows the upper frameline doubled and shown in the upper margin.

The major re-touch is known as the "portcullis" as it involves strong re-touching of the cross hatching inside the oval, which gives the appearance of a "portcullis". It is found in two positions:

1. Between the "A" of "Canada" and the "P" of "Postage".
2. Between the "E" of "Five" and the "C" of "Cents".

The first major re-entry, that Trimble illustrates and the one that is shown in Unitrade, involves string doubling of all the lettering in the lower right of the design, weaker doubling of most of the upper lettering, most all of the detail in the King's robe. In addition, the white oval in the upper right corner contains traces of the cross hatch shading inside it.

The second major re-entry that he illustrates is much harder to see in my opinion, despite the fact that he states that all of the design is doubled. Most of this doubling is very subtle, but the doubling of the hair, sideburns, ear and upper frameline are reasonably strong.

Some of the more subtle re-entries that Trimble lists and illustrates are:

1. Two parallel lines inside the white oval just below the "C" of "Canada".
2. Doubling of the lower frameline.
3. Doubling of the veins in the leaf above the right numeral box.
4. Fine doubling of the right vertical frameline of the right numeral box.
5. A dotted vertical line inside the upper left vertical frameline.

Seven Cent Value

Trimble lists and illustrates six re-entries for this value, three of which he classifies as major. In all cases, there is doubling of either the lower left, or lower right spandrel. In the major re-entries, this is accompanied by doubling in the letters above the spandrel. Unitrade lists the major re-entry, but not the others.

Ten Cent Value

Trimble shows three very minor re-entries on this stamp. All of them involve either a vertical frameline of the left numeral box or the bottom frameline of the right numeral box being doubled.

And there you have my summary of the coverage that Ralph Trimble has on his re-entries website. There are currently no known re-entries on either the 20c or 50c values. However, that may change with further study.







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