brightonpete
Departed
Rest in Peace
On a hike at Goodrich-Loomis
Posts: 5,110 
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Post by brightonpete on May 25, 2018 13:23:11 GMT
I have searched for photo's of this rather interesting Centennial 6¢ orange overprinted with a fluorescent "9959" or "5959" code, but haven't found any. There is very little info available about the history this stamp. I can't remember how much I paid for it, but since I probably bought it in the late 70's, I'm sure it wasn't too much! Does anyone have a similar stamp to compare? it is Unitrade (Scott) #459b.   |
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Post by feebletodix on May 26, 2018 7:14:50 GMT
Good day to you,
A nice find, never seen one before but I think it reads S959. It was applied before the use but after printing with a rubber stamp. This makes me wonder whether it was used to prevent/prosecute fraud by the end user.
Gavin
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Ryan
Member 
Calgary, Alberta, Canada
Posts: 2,720
What I collect: If I have a catalogue for it, I collect it. And I have many catalogues ....
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Post by Ryan on May 26, 2018 8:38:36 GMT
I have searched for photo's of this rather interesting Centennial 6¢ orange overprinted with a fluorescent "9959" or "5959" code, but haven't found any. Irwin & Freedman's book on the Centennial definitives calls these "fluorescent number overprints". They are found on tagged 6c orange sheet stamps (perf. 10 only), as well as some 5c and 15c copies. The 6 cent stamps have the widest range of possible overprints - ▐955 (that's a vertical bar at the start of that number, in case your display doesn't give the correct unicode symbol there), 5955, 5959, 9599 and 9959. 5c and 15c copies are only found with a 5959 overprint. Irwin & Freedman give the following info: The Robin Harris book on Centennial definitives calls them "luminous numbers" and gives the following sources for information from the newsletters of the BNAPS Centennial Definitives Study Group - newsletter #3 (1981) and newsletters #4 & #6 (1982). Harris specifically states that the overprints were created with a rubber stamp. Ryan |
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brightonpete
Departed
Rest in Peace
On a hike at Goodrich-Loomis
Posts: 5,110
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Post by brightonpete on May 26, 2018 13:57:23 GMT
I used to have David Gronbeck-Jones book on the Centennials, but that is long lost now unfortunately. I think he did have something in about this.
The application of it was suspect to me, but their use of rubber stamps make sense.
Thanks for the info, Ryan.
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Post by feebletodix on May 27, 2018 8:04:49 GMT
An interesting set of comments from the centennial study group which given the nature of postal authorities and fraud prevention, purchasing etc. inclines me to think the numbers were not applied by the Post Office. My experience in the Post Office, (buildings, estates management & security) is such that the fraud prevention systems within the disbursement system are robust enough to catch staff stealing. The quality of the application does lead me to think that this was end user fraud prevention if genuine.
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FDI
Member
Member of RPSC & BNAPS
Posts: 343
What I collect: Modern Canada (misperf, varieties, tagging errors), Canadian Cinderellas, EXUP & CAPEX & Dead Countries
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Post by FDI on Dec 11, 2020 14:22:16 GMT
To add to the above comments, I recently got my hands on two copies of the #351, 10c pale maroon brown Inuk and Kayak stamp from the 1955-1967 Wilding and Cameo Issues, with a hitherto unreported fluorescent "14469" overprint. As the seller explained, "the existence of fluorescent overprints on Canadian stamps of this period is well known on the 6c orange transportation stamp from the Centennial Issue, and on a few other stamps, but has never been reported on this stamp. He discovered them while sorting a number of mint examples. As per the seller, the backstory for the Centennial era stamp was that the fluorescent overprints were applied to the stamps owned by a drugstore in order to catch a thief that was stealing stamps from the postal counter. So, it seems reasonable to suppose that these overprints served the exact same function. This stamp was in use until February 8, 1967 when the 10c Centennial stamp replaced it, and the characteristics of this stamp place it around that time. This lends further support to the notion that these were anti-theft overprints."  FDI |
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