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

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 of thes…

Today's post deals with what I consider to be one of the most neglected issues in all of Canadian philately: the fourth postage due issue, which had one of the longest runs in Canadian postal history, being in use for 32 years, from its introduction in 1935 until its replacement in 1967 by the first designs of the Centennial series.

Unitrade barely does this issue any justice either, listing only a few hibrite paper varieties, and the so called "red-violet" shades. It completely ignores the intermediate shades that can be found on the 1c, 2c and 4c values, especially, not to mention the numerous paper and gum varieties that chronicle the changes made by the CBN during the 32 year period from 1935 to 1967.

This is clearly the issue for paper and gum varieties if these are of interest to you. The paper varieties do not just encompass the usual weave variations, but fluorescence as well, as this issue was current during the period of experimentation in the 1960's.

The S…