The story goes that the embossing die was lost, or mislaid, that a small supply of envelopes was wanted immediately by a business firm, and that a few hundreds were lithographed to fill this demand. The whole story sounds somewhat doubtful, to any one who knows how stamped envelopes are produced, but until quite recently we had not seen a specimen of the supposed lithographed envelopes, and therefore would not express any opinion upon them. A copy has lately been sent to our publishers, and we find it to be practically identical, as far as _almost_ entire absence of embossing is concerned, with some specimens which we obtained in Canada a few years ago; the embossing, in the copy shown us, is not absolutely invisible, there being slight traces of it about the head, and especially the chignon; and if any envelopes have been lithographed, which we greatly doubt, this is not one of them. [211] =Philatelic Record=, XVIII: 135. [212] =Monthly Journal=, VI: 188. The lithographing of a comparatively few envelopes by a country like Canada appears somewhat incredulous on the face of it, and even more so does the "loss" or "misplacing" of the embossing die; the true explanation of the occurrence is doubtless found in the use of a much worn die, or more likely a defective "counter-die" or "bed-plate" which backs the paper. In the issue for January 1895, the _American Journal of Philately_ had this statement:--"Mr. G. A. Lowe informs us that the 3c envelope exists on wove paper and was issued in 1891, probably in error." Referring to this, the _Monthly Journal_ for May 1895, states:-- Mr. King tells us that he found some packets of this variety in the Post-office at Halifax, and that he thinks that they may be a new edition, on a better paper than the last. He is not certain yet about this, as the great majority of the stock consisted of the _laid_ paper envelopes, and therefore the use of the wove may have been unintentional or temporary. Again in the August 1895 issue, the last quoted paper says:-- In further reference to the 3c envelopes on _wove_ paper, Mr. King sends us replies which he received from the P. O. Department to his enquiries on the subject. The replies are vague, if not evasive, but show plainly that no intentional change was made in the paper used; they seemed to indicate, however, that the contractors are not restricted to a particular nature of paper, so long as the envelopes supplied are of sufficiently good quality.