Christmas Stamp Part II, a Grizzly Bear and a Moose

Good afternoon everyone. A couple of posts ago, I showed a Christmas stamp along with a little annectode about something that happenned to me a little while ago when I used stamps just like the one I posted.

To my big surprise, noone actually correctly guessed why the envelope never made it to its destination. Well, here here's the explanation. I didn't know before I read a little paragraph below another Christmas issue in my Unitrade Specialized Catalogue of Canadian Stamps. The sidenote mentionned the following:

"Number 1297 was issed in booklets only. See note following No. 1225." So I jump to 1225 to read the following note:

"No. 1225 was issued in booklets only, for use on greeting card envelopes bearing a printed postal code matrix. Accepted singly until January 31, 1989 if affixed to the designated envelopes."

Voilà. So basically the note said the stamps I used would have only been valid for postage on specifically designated envelopes from Canada Post and only until January 31, 1991. I sent this in 2007, in my own envelope, no wonder it never made it to the destination. And worst part of all, I hadn't put a return address. So who knows where the letter is now, probably in the Dead Letter Office (if it still exists).

What should have tipped me off of this is the actual face value of the stamp. In 1990, the domestic first class rate was 39c. The stamp I used had a face value of 34c. This stamp is part of a series of 4 stamps depicting works of native Canadian artists. A 39c (domestic), a 45c (United States), a 78c (International) and finally, the infamous stamp I used a 34c.

According to my catalogue, Canada Post last issued a reduced rate "Christmas" stamp for use on designated envelopes in 1995. The stamp issued had a face value of 40c while the domestic rate at the time was 45c. Interresting isn't it? I would like to see these "designated envelopes". If anyone has one or a picture/scan of one, I would be interrested to see it.

On another note, I had to use high value definitives recently to send stamps to international destination. Pretty nice engraved stamps part of the Wildlife series started in 1997. I was surprised to see they had these stamps at the Post Office I went to. Specifically, I used the 1$ deer stamp (Unitrade/Scott #1696) and the 2$ horse stamp (Unitrade/Scott #1700) both issued in 2005. The RPSC website has a nice picture showing the entire series. Check them out at the bottom of the page here.

I was even more surprised to see what the clerk had in her "secret drawer" when I noticed the big Grizzly Bear (the 8$ stamp of the series), the highest denomination you'll ever see, to date, on a canadian stamp. I was surprised to see it because it was originally issued in 1997 and they're becoming harder and harder to find in your local post office. Some people are already selling it on major auction websites for a couple dollars more than face value. I was glad to see it there since I didn't have a copy of it in my collection so I was happy to fill another empty spot in my album :-)

I also have an extra MNH copy of the 5$ denomination, the very "canadian" Moose :-) If anyone is interrested in a trade, let me know at ebisaillon@gmail.com

Québec Tercentenary

Next year, more precisely on July 3rd 2008, Québec City will be celebrating its quadricentenary (big word of the day meaning 400th anniversary). Canada Post and France La Poste will issue a stamp commemorating the founding of Québec City’s 400th anniversary, the fifth and final stamp in the “New France” series.

I thought it would be nice to take a look back, 100 years ago, at the Québec Tercentenary series of stamps. A total of eight stamps were issued on July 13th 1908, values ranging from 1/2c to 20c. The Honourable Rudolphe Lemieux was the Postmaster-General, Wilfrid Laurier was the Prime Minister of Canada and King Edward VII was the reigning King.

This series is considered by many to be Canada’s first real commemorative issue and I personally think it’s still, to this date, one of Canada’s nicest issue along with the “Scroll” issue of 1928 (including the famous “Bluenose”).

The following stamps are from my personal collection, you’ll notice I’m missing two values, the 7c and the 20c. I have recently won an auction for a MH copy of the 20c stamp; it should get here soon and I can’t wait to fill in the blank spot in my album. Seven down, one to go…

First, we have the 1/2c, a nice portrait depicting George, the Prince of Wales and “May”, the Princess of Wales. George went on to become King George V two years later in 1910.

The Prince of Wales was actually present at the tercentenary celebration, representing Kind Edward VII. I found an interesting article in the NY Times archive titled “Prince of Wales Will Represent King at Great Historic Celebration”. Quite an interesting article as it goes in some details about the actual celebration and some of its guests. You can see it here. (click “full article” to see the actual clipping).

We then have the 1c stamp, again two portraits, but this time of Jacques Cartier and Samuel de Champlain. Jacques Cartier was the first explorer of the Gulf of St. Lawrence and he also built a fort at Stadacona, which is where Québec City is now located. As for Samuel de Champlain, he’s the founder of Québec City and the actual “father of the New France”.

The 2c stamp also displays two nice portraits, this time of Kind Edward VII and Queen Alexandra. An interesting fact about King Edward and this particular series of stamp is that he had to give his consent before the stamps could be issued simply because the stamps were bearing portraits of non-royal persons as well as historical subjects, a major change from previous stamp designs.

Next up is the 5c stamp, depicting the Champlain’s Home at Québec (“l’abitation de Québecq”, note the spelling. “Québecq” actually comes from the word “Kébec” meaning “strait” or “narrowing” in Algonquin, an aboriginal north American language). This is considered the first house every built in Québec and where himself, the workmen and the craftsmen all lived. They also used this “home” to store food and weapons.

We’re back to portraits with the 7c stamp of the issue. Two portraits depicting both Montcalm and Wolfe, the two commanders of France and Great Britain involved in one of the most famous North American battle. Both commanders ended up dying in the Battle of the Plains of Abraham, Wolfe died in battle on the field while Montcalm died the next morning. I wonder how the men would have felt knowing they would be “immortalized” side-by-side on a commemorative stamp. For an image of the 7c stamp, refer to the RPSC website here.

As for the 10c stamp, “Québec in 1700”, I found an excerpt from a news article dating back from July 4th 1908 from the Toronto Globe that describes the scene; “Québec as it was in 1700 […], copied from Bacqueville de la Potheries’s Histoire de la Nouvelle France. It is a quaint picture of the old city, showing steeples here and there, the fort on the river front and in faint lines the Laurentide Mountains in the background.” I am on the lookout for a copy with better centering.

The 15c stamp, “Champlain departing for the West” depicts a scene showing him on his third voyage to Canada about to leave for the West. Champlain’s own narrative of the event; “With our canoes laden with provisions, our arms and some merchandise to be given as presents to the Indians, I started on Monday, May 27, from the isle of Sainte Helaine, accompanied by four Frenchmen and one Indian. A salute was given in my honour from some small pieces of artillery.”

The highest denomination in this series is the 20c stamp depicting “Cartier’s Arrival at Québec”, showing him and his three ships sailing on the waters of the St. Lawrence. For an image of the 20c stamp, refer to the RPSC website here.

I hope you enjoyed this quick overview of this great series. I would love to hear your comments, drop me a line at ebisaillon@gmail.com

Christmas Stamps... (2 posts on the same night, what's happenning to me?)

Hello again! Wow, I go from 2 posts in 6 months to 2 posts on the same night, talk about consistency :) I just came back from Michael Dodd's blog at http://blog.michael.dodd.com/ where he had a post about Christmas stamps. It reminded me of a funny, yet annoying thing that happenned to me a couple of weeks ago. I'm throwing in a quiz question in there as well, some more free stamps to be won :) Bare with me for the story...

You may already know that my wife and I had a beautiful baby girl named Élise last year. What's the number one thing that a baby consumes? That's right, milk. In our case, baby formula. The hunt was on to find coupons and gift certificates, even members of our families were trying to find some for us. We ended up with a TON of coupons, some of them we couldn't use because they were for a different brand.

So we ended up selling those coupons on a major auction website (believe it or not, there's a lot of people out there hunting down these coupons and gift certificates for baby formula!). So a couple of days later, someone put in a bid and won the coupons, sent me the payment and I sent them the coupons. The buyer was someone living in the United States.

The current postage rate for a first class letter to the US from Canada is 93c. I have this phobia, don't ask me why, of sending something with insufficient postage, especially when someone bought something from me, so I used 4 (yes, I know, that's way too much) stamps of 34c for a total of 1.36$, 43c over the required postage rate. I have a bunch of mint copies of the following stamp so I thought I would use a couple of them for postate. Here's a scan of a stamp just like the ones I used (by the way, if you need a copy of this stamp, let me know, I think I have about 20 MNH copies just like this).

It's a Christmas stamp that was issued in October 1990, Unitrade #1297, it was issued in booklets only. Its current MNH catalogue value is 1.35$.

A couple of weeks later, after receiving several annoying emails from the buyer, I had to issue him a refund for the full price of the coupons and the shipping fees because he claimed he never received the envelope. I was annoyed as well but complied and issued him a full refund. At the time, I was sure he was lying and that he did in fact received the envelope. It had sufficient postage and the address was the correct one, how can it go missing?

If was only a couple of days after, while browsing through my Unitrade Specialized Catalogue of Canadian Stamps that it hit me... I finally knew why he never received the letter, of course he wasn't lying! Why?

I'll randomly pick someone who emails me the correct answer to why he never got the letter at ebisaillon@gmail.com and send them a copy of the beneficial insects souvenir sheet I showed two posts ago for free, including postage. I have a few more copies of those I can give away.

This is an easy one people, I felt a bit silly... A philatelist doing a mistake like this! I guess we learn something new everyday :)

Kudos to StampAlbums.com

Good evening everyone. This post is not so much about stamps but about the great hobby. I wanted to give out some kudos to the owner of the "Stamp Albums Web" located at http://www.stampalbums.com/. I am in no way affiliated with this website, I just thought other people out there might find this service extremely useful and the best of it all, it's really cheap!

I recently started to collect stamps from Australia, the Australian States, France and the French colonies. I was looking for albums out there but your typical "already printed" specialy albums are pretty expensive and I didn't want to just stick my new stamps in a stock book. I was browsing the web and found this great website http://www.stampalbums.com/.

It's pretty simple, there's a couple of membership options available but basically, it turned out to be 20$US for a one year membership and I now have access to his entire collection of countries and believe me when I say entire collection, there's a ton of albums available, all broken down into countries and years. You can even get album pages for the classic era only you specialize in that specific area. The pages are pretty complete are really nicely laid out.

I already downloaded several PDF files and had them printed on 90lbs (cardboard like) paper at Business Depot. I now have a fancy heavy duty binder and the entire classic Australia and Australian States pages printed for a grand total of about 15-16$!

Check them out at http://www.stampalbums.com/ you will be glad you did, and while you're there, tell him I sent you, maybe I'll get an extension on my membership (hey, can't blame a guy for trying!)

Eric.

Help me out... Free stamps for you :-)

Hi everyone, I have to admit, it seems to be a recurring theme with me and this blog, 3 months seems to be the average in between my posts, pretty sad if you ask me.

I've been sorting through lots and lots and lots and lots of worldwide stamps. It's been an interresting process. I've become pretty interrested in stamps from Australia, the Australian States, France and the French Colonies. Australia is in many ways very similar to Canada so the jump to this country just seems like a natural one. As for France, being from a francophone from Québec, need I say more? :-)

I did come across the following stamp that I can't really ID. It probably is very obvious to someone out there... please enlighten me

The first person that emails me the answer gets a free spanking new souvenir sheet depicting the beneficial insects issued by Canada Post this last October, shipping included!

Email me at ebisaillon@gmail.com if you know more about this stamp. Thanks a lot everyone.

Update: Thanks to Jill in Melbourne for the detailed answer. Jill, please send me your mailing address and I will send you the souvenir sheet. Thanks again! Interresting stuff.

The stamp is from Hungary. It is a mauve 2 krajczar value, listed inStanley Gibbons as SG 40 (1888). Above the letter/envelope is the crown of St Stephen, the traditional crown of the Hungarian monarchy.

3 months already...

Good evening everyone... Yes, it's really been 3 months since my last post, I can't believe it. I am now officially a stay-at-home dad. I started my paternity leave at the end of May and my wife only went back to work at the beginning of July. It is a really nice change from the 9 to 5 job. The little one is great, she's 10 months old now and keeping us both really busy. It's really great to see how quickly she's growing and developing. Alright enough baby talk...

I have neglected to post any philatelic news or show some pictures of my new stamps but I've been really active in working on transferring my Canadian Mint collection to my new set of Unity Canada albums, all three volumes. I have spent several hours carefully cutting and pasting stamp mounts in my new albums and I am still not done yet. I have just started the year 1980 and while that leaves me only 27 years of stamps to transfer, keep in mind that the number of stamps issued in the recent years has been increasing... It's been a great way to "revisit" my collection and basically handle every one on my mint canadian stamps.

I got a coupe of nice stamps added to my collection. A couple of higher denomination mint King George V admirals, a very nice example of the first christmas stamp ever issued in 1898 (more on this later) and two nice mint copies of the 5c stamp of the Québec Tercentenary issue of 1908 depicting "Champlain's Habitation" (I showed a block of 6 of the 1/2c in the previous post). Both copies were very well centered for this issue (considered at least VF) and very lightly hinged. Here's a scan of one of the copies. Catalogue value for this condition is 100$CAN.

If anyone is interrested in obtaining a copy of this stamp, let me know and we can arrange a trade, maybe for the 1c or 2c issue in the same serie or something else I am missing...

That's it for now, i'll really try harder to keep up with the posts. Drop me a line if you want to chat. ebisaillon@gmail.com

Bluenose finally came... and more

It finally came! I just received my Bluenose today directly from the UK. Not bad at all, 2 weeks for the round trip from Canada to the UK. Here's a bigger scan of the stamp, front and back. I was a bit worried because the seller did not include a scan of the back but it turned out great. I personally prefer to have a nice, fresh and well centered stamp with a hinge mark instead of a never hinged one with so-so centering. How about you, do you prefer a nicely centered stamp with a hinge mark or one that's never been hinged but with not so great centering?

Along with the Schooner, I also received a mint block of 6 stamps of the 1/2c from the Québec Tercentenary issue of 1908. I don't collect blocks but the stamps have fine centering for this issue (could still be better) and I basically had it for peanuts. I didn't have a mint version of this particular stamp so I bought it as well.

I'm even considering splitting up the block in singles. I would end up with two never hinged copies (two middle stamps) and 4 very lightly hinged copies (top and bottom row). What do you think, should I split them? If any of you are interrested in one of those singles, let me know and we can arrange a trade for some other mint Canada stamps or used worldwide stamps. Drop me a line at ebisaillon@gmail.com

Treasure Box, Scott Catalogue and Year of the Tiger

Good evening everyone. What a beautiful week-end we had here in the national capital region, it's as if summer was already here, but I heard it's all coming back to more "seasonal" weather in the next couple of days. It was good while it lasted :P

After the "treasure box" (see post "Hours and hours of fun") was given to me, I felt the need to borrow the Scott Catalogue from my local library to help me out in identifying some of the hundreds and hundreds of worldwide stamps present in the "box". They have both the 2006 and 2007 but you can only borrow the 2006, the 2007 are for reference only. What a great tool those books are, BUT they are mad expensive! 57$US per volume! One must shell out more than 300$US to get the 6 volumes. It turns out that you can also get the volumes on CDs but for relatively the same price, bummer... My dad has some older Scott volumes, maybe I should try to get my hands on some, let me know if you know where I could find them. I guess you don't really need the latest issue if you're only collecting from the classic era or up to a certain year... What do you guys use for reference ?

I sorted all the envelopes in the "treasure box" by country name (most of them had the "french" country names). I've only had time to go through the first 3 envelopes, labelled "Allemagne" (Germany), Allemagne de l'Ouest (West Germany) and Allemagne de l'Est (East Germany). Most of the stamps in the Germany and West Germany enveloppes were commemoratives, nice ones but nothing that really jumped out. The interresting ones came from the DDR lot (Deutsch Democratik Republik (sp?)). Some really nice CTOs and Mint NH from a 1953 series. Some of the originals, some of the redrawn type, some overprinted, some from lithography, others typography. Its nice to see what really is the same stamp but issued 5 times with minor differences. A good score was the Scott #230A MNH, 70pf, depicting a dove and a East German family. Scott lists that particular stamp at 8.50US$. There was also a bunch of airmails and officials. I will try to post some scans of the stamps in a later post.

On another topic, the answer for the quiz question I had in an earlier post about the number of uncut press sheet issued for the Chinese Lunar New Year for the Year of the Tiger was 30 000, congratulations to Michael Dodd for his guess of 10 000, he was the closest to the actual number. The S/S is on the way Michael!

Good night everyone.

Boeing 747SP and a fish :-)

Good evening everyone. I wanted to thank Michael Dodd for the great cover he sent me a couple of days ago. I had correctly answered (but too quickly for the Concorde cover :P), the question he had on his blog about the number of fuel tanks on a Concorde. Check it out on the right.

I did a bit of research on this cover and I found some great information on it and other 747SP covers here over at the 747sp.com website (http://www.747sp.com/covers.asp). It turns out that these "flight covers" were onboard the actual flight they commemorated, pretty neat. This particular cover was for the first commercial flight of the 747SP aircraft from Johannesburn South Africa to Athens in Greece (South African Airways) on April 24, 1976. The cover also features a nice 10c stamp of the Zancius Cornutus fish from the Republic of South Africa.

Head over to Tommy and Chaz's website at http://www.747sp.com to find out more about this aircraft and to see some other fine examples of 747SP flight covers. Thank you guys.

By the way, I'm still waiting for that correct answer to the question I had in my previous blog entry. Michael has the closest answer yet, I will wait until Friday morning and announce the winner then.

Souvenir Sheets

Good evening everyone, I didn't have time to post anything over the week-end but I thought I'd show you some souvenir sheets from the late 90's I received today. I won multiple auctions from the same seller a couple of weeks ago. I'm missing a couple of more recent souvenir sheets and when I see bargains to fill up spots in my album, I jump on it, I guess you can call me a compulsive buyer. Anyways, enough about my compulsive buying and on with the stamps...

First off we have the nice Orchids S/S from 1999 (August 21), Unitrade #1790b. This souvenir sheet was issued for the World Orchid Conference, for the first time in Canada, in Vancouver B.C. To see another very nice set of Orchid souvenir sheet from Nepal, check out Michael Dodd's blog here or use the link on the right side of the page.

Up next I received this big (no pun intended) souvenir sheet issued to recognize the first Japanese Basho tournament held in Canada, again in Vancouver, on July 6 and 7, 1998. Unitrade catalogue also mentions that there's only been 9 tournaments held outside Japan. This souvenir sheet is Unitrade #1724b.

Then this even bigger souvenir sheet, issued October 1st, 1998. Clowns depicting acts with animals, equestrians acts, lion taming and acrobats. This is a massive souvenir sheet. I really like the way the four clowns are in 4 different orientations, pretty neat. Some people find clowns a bit freaky and I can see why :) This souvenir sheet is Unitrade #1760b.

And finally, the last sheet I already had but the seller included it in the shipment as a little gift since it took a bit longer than expected to ship the stamps. It's a nice sheet issued on January 8, 1998 to celebrate the Chinese New Year, Year of the Tiger, the second in the Lunar New Year serie. This one is a little bit particular because it has the printers inscription in the bottom part of the sheet. Only 500 000 souvenir sheets were issued with the overprint versus 2 500 000 without it. I already have the two varieties. I will send the souvenir sheet to the first person who can cell me how many uncut press sheets of this souvenir sheet were printed. Send me your answer at ebisaillon@gmail.com

Hours and hours of fun...

Good evening everyone, it's close to 10 o'clock here in Canada and I'm about to go to bed (what a week). But before I do that, I wanted to give you a sneak peak at something that was given to me by my father a couple of week ago... Take a look at the following picture.

Believe it or not, my father found this near the garbage chute in his building, someone wanted to get rid of this but instead of throwing it down the chute, left it there for someone to pick up. My father is also a philatelist but has not really been active in the hobby for a good ten years now and gave it to me, what a nice surprise that was. We're thinking an older lady/gentleman was doing some clean-up and wanted to get rid of this but not "trash it", I can thank them for that :-)

What we have here is a box made of popsicle sticks containing about 50+ home made envelopes all labeled with different country names, others without anything written on them, a nice pair of tongs, two packs of hinges and a little 1962 catalogue from some stamp company (more on this catalogue in another post, that item alone was a great find).

Tonight was the first time I took a closer look at it and I can tell you right now I will be spending a good amount of time going through all this, digging up the good stuff and who knows what else I might find in there. Many posts on this treasure box to come as I go through it. Good night everyone. ebisaillon@gmail.com

Jubilee

Good morning everyone (afternoon or evening, wherever you are). I recently went to a celebration my wife's family had commemorating one of their great aunt's "Jubilee" in the sisterhood (being a nun).

I thought it would be nice to show a stamp in the "Jubilee" series from 1897 I got a couple of days ago (Unitrade/Scott #51). Perfectly centered examples of stamps in this series are harder to find and will command a premium. I would grade the stamp shown here as Fine Mint Never Hinged (some people would even say F/VF or VF), a good deal for the 5$ I paid for it.

For those of you interrested in this series, the RPSC (Royal Philatelic Society of Canada) website has a great page showing the entire series here. Let me know what you think, how you would grade this stamp? Have a great day everyone. ebisaillon@gmail.com

Jump Strip... or not.

Good morning everyone. I recently received a lot a won that contained a series of MNH coils from the KGVI War Issue. A nice series of singles and pairs and a strip of 4 of the green 1c (Scott/Unitrade #278).

I have seen a couple of "jump strips of 4" online but the examples I saw always had a substantial shift in alignment between the stamps, it immediately jumped out at you. The copy I have does have a shift in vertical alignment between stamp #2 and stamp #3 of the strip but not a significant one. It is more apparent looking at the bottow part of the design than it is if you look at the top of it. You can click on the image to see a larger scan of the image and judge for yourself (filesize > 2Mb).

So I guess what I'm really trying to find out is if the "amount" of shift has to be significant for it to be considered a "jump strip". Drop me a line, let me know what you think ebisaillon@gmail.com.

Bluenose

Hello everyone and welcome to my new blog. This is my first official post and what better way to start things off then to show you what many believe to be the nicest canadian stamp ever made, the 50c Bluenose, issued in January 1929 and part of the beautiful "King George V Scroll Issue". More on this famous stamp in another posting... soon.

I was the winning bidder on this nice mint hinged copy that appears to have fine to very fine centering. Unfortunately the seller did not accept PayPal so it may take a bit longer for me to get the stamp (payment from Canada to UK and stamp from UK to Canada). Can't wait to get it, I've been wanting a copy of this nice stamp for a very long time.

I'll post something here once it gets delivered. In the mean time, let me know what you think the nicest canadian stamp is, just drop me an email at ebisaillon@gmail.com.