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

I had said last week that I would have a post prepared and published on the 1935 Silver Jubilee Issue today. Unfortunately I was not able to start it until late today. However, I will have it posted by late afternoon tomorrow.

I just wanted to let you know in case you were looking for it.

I wanted to take a break from my regular writing to discuss an attitude that I have encountered among certain collectors that really bothers me. I can best describe it through the following exchange that occurred with an infrequent customer last night:

Two days ago, I was at dinner when I received notification of five offers from E-bay. Immediately I went to go check them:

1. First offer was for $1 on my asking price of $1.20. Ok, I thought, good, reasonable offer. So I accepted it.

2. Second offer was for $1.25 on an item I had priced for $4.00. It had a catalogue price in Unitrade of $5.

3. The third through fifth offers were the same as above: $1.25 on $4. Each item had a Unitrade value of $5.

So basically, this customer wanted us to sell him $21.50 of Unitrade value for $6.

As dealers who make our living supplying stamps to collectors, there is no way that we can accept an offer of 25% of catalogue from a customer under any circumstances. The reason we can't is because in addition t…

Today's post picks up where I left off two weeks ago and looks at the Third Postage Due issue, which had a very short period of usage, first appearing in May 1933, and being gradually replaced in mid to late 1935. Because of this, Unitrade does not give it much attention at all, listing only the basic Scott numbers, #J11-J14 and one imperforate pair for the 1c. Because the period of use was so short, all the stamps of this issue are much scarcer than most average issues of the period. However, I find that the catalogue prices do not at all reflect the scarcity of the stamps, especially VF mint or choice used examples. Only 500,000 of the 10c value was issued, making this stamp every bit as scarce as the 1929 Parliament dollar or 1930 Mt. Edith Cavell dollar, and yet, its value in Unitrade remains very modest.

This was the last postage due issue to be printed by the British American Bank Note Company (BABN) before the contract reverted to the Canadian Bank Note Company in 1935. De…

I had promised last week that my next post would be about the Third Postage Due Issue of 1933-1935. However, shortly after I published my post last week about the Second Postage Due Issue, a regular reader pointed out that I never wrote about the First Postage Due Issue. Surprised, I went back over my posts and realized that he was indeed correct. So I figured that this week, I had better circle back and write about this very beautiful and simple early modern issue.

Like the other Postage Due material, it is not nearly as popular with collectors as it ought to be, most likely because of where it is located in people's albums. My hope is that this post will demonstrate that this is a fantastic candidate for a specialized collection, as it offers so many opportunities for the specialist, while at the same time featuring some very scarce material. One of the factors that makes it so interesting is its long period of use: 25 years, from mid 1906 until 1930, when the Second Issue repl…