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

Overview Today's post will be much shorter than in the past several weeks and will look at the high value definitive stamps that began to replace the designs of the 1946 Peace Issue, starting with the 50c in 1950. They are interesting stamps because they technically occupy both the end of King George VI's reign, as well as the very beginning of Queen Elizabeth II's reign. So they really ought to be included in your collection if you are a specialist of either reign. Although they do not display quite the same range of paper, shade and gum varieties as the earlier Peace Issue, there are still some worthwhile varieties that can be collected. I will illustrate most of them here, though there is one very dull, cold shade of ultramarine on the $1 fisheries that I do not currently have an example of. This set is probably not complicated enough on its own to make a lifetime collection, though there is still a decent amount of proof material, which will prove ellusive to a spe...

Overview Today's post comes after a period of considerable anticipation by some of our readers who have been eagerly awaiting the start of the King George VI period. In this post we will explore some aspects of the 1937-42 Mufti and Pictorial Issue. The issue gets its name from the fact that the low values are the only stamps, other than the 1949-52 Postes Postage Issue, in which King George VI appears in civilian dress, rather than being in uniform. The Pictorial portion of the issue continues the tradition began by the Scroll issue, ten years earlier, of showing scenes from various regions of Canada. For some unknown reason, Unitrade splits this issue up into two separate issues, which makes little sense to me, as it is very clear that they are the same general issue. One possibility might be that the stamps were all issued on different dates, with the higher values not appearing until more than a year after the low values. Again, Herman Herbert Schwartz was the designer o...