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

6c on 5c olive-brown 2,000,000 issued.
Before I move on to the 1930-1935 Arch Issue, there is one small provisional issue that I should deal with briefly, which is the 6c on 5c surcharge that was applied to stocks of the 5c Scroll Issue airmail stamp in early 1932. 
The issue was necessitated by an increase in airmail rates that was brought about by the re-introduction of the 1c War Tax on local mail in 1931. There were no new 6c stamp designs prepared for this increase until the Dated Die Issue appeared in 1935. Instead the decision was made to use up unsold stocks of first the Scroll Issue airmail stamp, and then when these were exhausted, the 5c Arch Issue airmail. This later design was surcharged in blue and released as part of the Ottawa Imperial Economic Conference commemorative issue, which was released on June 12, 1932. Consequently, it is difficult to know where to place this issue, since it has the Scroll design, but was issued during the period associated with the Arch Iss…

Today's post will deal with the remaining aspects of this wonderfully attractive definitive issue.

Proof Material


Like most issues that have come before it, there is a large range of proof material ranging from plate proofs on horizontally ribbed India paper, to die proofs. What makes this issue distinct is that all of these items are readily affordable to a collector of moderate means, with none of the items selling for more than $2,000 generally. The BNA Proofs website does an excellent job of laying out exactly what exists on this issue (or at least what has been reported to exist), so I will not duplicate it here.  However, I will provide a summary and the link to their website, which you can then peruse in more detail. 
53 items are detailed there, which can be broken down into the following categories:
Essays of the King George V Portrait and the Parliament Buildings (4 different in black, light brown on the 1c and blue green on the $1)Large hardened and unhardened die proofs…

Finally we are all done counting inventory and satisfying Canada Revenue Agency and can now return to doing what we do best: write about and sell stamps.

Today's post will begin a journey into what are some of my favourite Canadian issues. Beginning in 1928, and going to 1946, Canada issued no fewer than seven long definitive sets. The general format was the same for each one: a series of low values featuring a portrait of the king and then a series of high values with some pictorial designs of Canadian landmarks, or in the case of the 1942-46 War Issue, depictions of Canada's participation in the war effort. Generally, it would appear that the Post Office Department tried to represent all regions of the country on the stamps, although occasionally one region would be missed on an issue. This format continued into the present reign and has come to define the way in which Canadian definitive stamps are issued. Up until the War Issue, the sets were generally discrete, in that o…

I had said last week that we are counting inventory and that there would be no more posts until this week when we would be finished.

It turns out that our stock is more vast than we possibly could have imagined and it has taken much longer to count than we thought it would. We will finish everything today, and tomorrow we have to prepare and file our tax return. So we will resume posting on Wednesday this week.

Stay tuned.

I thought I had better let our readers know that we are not going to be doing any new posts this week because we are busy counting inventory for our fiscal year end, and I expect this to take all of this week.

We will return next Monday with a post about the 1928-1929 Scroll Issue. In the meantime, we encourage those of you who are new to the blog, to take a look at some of the older posts. Specifically, you will find many detailed posts on such issues as:


Large and Small QueensThe 1954-62 Wilding IssueThe 1953-62 Karsh IssueThe 1911-27 Admiral Issue Enjoy, and we will be back next week. 

Overview
Today's post will deal with the second commemorative issue of 1927 that was released on the same day as the previous set, the 60th Anniversary of Confederation Issue. Collectors call it the Historical Issue because it depicts historical figures only and includes three of the fathers of confederation who are never seen again on any Canadian stamp. The issue was actually intended to be released originally in 1926 when it was printed, but for some strange reason, the Post Office Department decided to hold it back and release it on the same day as the Confederation Issue, June 29, 1927.
The points of interest with this issue are much the same as the Confederation issue, but not quite as extensive. Consequently for an area of specialization, this issue will often be collected with the confederation issue. 
One thing that I forgot to cover in my post about the Confederation issue are the paper and gum differences, which although subtle are collectible I believe. I will cover th…

Overview
This neat little commemorative set was issued on June 29, 1927, the same day as the Historical Issue. It is one of those sets that most collectors buy for their albums and never think much about. Indeed, Unitrade contains really just one page of listings and so it seems to be a set that does not afford much opportunity for specialization. However, nothing could be further from the truth. In fact, there are several points of interest around which a specialized collection could be formed as we shall see. These include:
Shade variations on all values except possibly the 12c, as I have not seen any shade variations on that value. Differences in both the thickness of the paper and visibility of mesh. Some plate flaws can be found, though these are scarce. The era of First Day Covers is generally recognized to have begun with this issue, and so it is possible to look for different cachets. Most of the stamps take CDS cancels beautifully, so a cancel collection would be very challeng…