Canada: Its Postage Stamps and Postal StationeryHowes, Clifton A. (Clifton Armstrong)
History
Canada: Its Postage Stamps and Postal Stationery
Howes, Clifton A. (Clifton Armstrong)
Postage stamps -- Canada; Postal stationery -- Canada
The 7-1/2d. stamp is known to have been arranged on the plate for
printing sheets of 120 stamps, ten rows of twelve stamps each, this
being to facilitate the reckoning in English money. The eight marginal
imprints appeared as on the other values. There was but one supply
received, on the first order, of 100,080 stamps which, if we divide by
120, gives an even 834 sheets. Now, if we but glance back at the first
supply received of the 10d. stamp[52] we find exactly the same number,
evenly divisible by 120 but not by 100. The second supply of the 10d.
stamp works out in exactly the same way,--72,120 makes an even 601
sheets at 120 per sheet. Is it not probable to suppose, therefore, in
the absence of entire sheets or horizontal rows of the 10d. stamp, that
the latter was also printed in sheets of 120, as previously suggested,
instead of sheets of 100 as stated in Mr. King's article?[53]
[52] See page 51.
[53] =Monthly Journal=, VII: 8.
When the issue of the decimal stamps took place, on July 1, 1859, there
were 17,670 of the 7-1/2d. stamps on hand, so that the total issue of
this value was 82,410 copies.
As will be gathered from Mr. Brouse's paper, which we quoted in
connection with the 10d. stamp, a similar variation in the width of the
oval is to be found in the case of the 7-1/2d. stamp, but the extremes
are not so great and it is therefore not so noticeable. A glance at the
table of measurements[54] will show that the variation in width is
confined to a half millimeter and that in height to practically the same
amount. Of course the discussion and conclusions detailed at length
under the 10d. stamp apply with equal force in the present instance, and
the fact that the 7-1/2d. stamp is not found on the very thin paper
probably accounts for the lack of extreme variations. It was printed
upon paper of the same kind as used for the 10d., but only on the medium
and thicker qualities. A pair of the stamps in juxtaposition, showing
the wide oval and the narrow oval, will be found as numbers 67 and 68
respectively on Plate IV.
[54] See page 54.
* * * * *
The last--and also least--of the pence issues was the half-penny stamp.
There had been a need for this value since the introduction of stamps,
for there were several rates that were impossible to make up with the
denominations that were issued and which therefore had to be paid in
money. Among these were the 1/2d. charge on newspapers from 1851 to
1855, the same charge per ounce on magazines and books during the entire
period, the 1/2d. and 1d. carrier's fees, the 1d. rate on circulars and
on soldier's letters, and the several 7-1/2d. rates for letters and for
the book post with England. But the Act last quoted,[55] which restored
a charge on transient newspapers, seems to have been the direct cause of
the belated issue of the half-penny stamp. The circular announcing its
issue is as follows:[56]--
POSTAGE ON NEWSPAPERS AND PERIODICALS.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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