Canada: All Things about Small Queens

OK, I figured I wouldn't be so lazy and after a quick search I found the thread where I originally posted that table.  There are many more threads on TSF dealing with the Small Queen as well.

Ryan

Ryan - thanks for that!! I actually managed just the same late last night, after I had made this post above  I did some digging in my own old files, and found the entire Shoemakers list in 'The Official journal of BNAPS", vol 56 - no.3, issued 1999. I saved it when I worked on the small queens a couple of years back, but had forgot I had it!
Thanks a lot anyway, and yes - you are right Ryan - Shoemakers lists got me rather confused - he is into details I have not read anywhere else.


The quality of the images in my copy is a bit better than the one from SCF, so I will share them in this thread for anyone curious.

Shoemakers most detailed studies is actually captured in 2 different tables, here is table 1:






And here is table 2









So, I did look at these very late last night until I exhausted! Was blown away by all the details - 12 different varieties of the 3c from the 1st Ottawa printing alone - and countless for the later printings! I cannot possibly go this deep into the small queens... I ended up simply adding one more variety for the 1st Ottawa printing, Pale rose...and allowing space for vertical mesh as well. When things get too complicated one need to try to simplify!

For anyone interested, I can share the full Newsletter with an article of the 3c small queen, where these tables are taken from, just sing out.

Having gathered references on the Canada Small Queen for the past 2 years and having used them, I plan to re-do these stamps again and maybe a third time.
Here are some references used:

1) Canada's Small Queen Era 1870-1897 - George B. Arfken   (good read but not an identification book)
2) Canada's Postage Stamps of the Small Queen Era,1870-1897 - Hillson and Nixon (full of great stuff, shades, perfs, no catalog numbers)
3) Small Queens Issue - A guide to Identification of Printings - John Hillson (good reference)

                                         www.canadianpsgb.org.uk/small_queens_print.html

4) Color Guides of the Small Queens - Richard Morris - a) Three Cents small Queens # 37 & 41   b)Two cents #36; five cents # 38 &42; eight cents #44      c)one cent #35; six cents #39 & 43 ; ten cents # 40 & 45

5) Perf gauge received by a member of another Forum with Kiusalas gauge, Possible Small Queen gauges, decimal and standard gauges. This gauge was received directly from the author and I cannot post it
6) More recently I added from our Forum:  Shoemakers list in 'The Official journal of BNAPS", vol 56 - no.3, issued 1999

note:
The 2 books were bought from Vincent Greene Graves Phil Research Foundation
The Color Guides were bought from the RPSC    www.rpsc.org/reference/lit/lit_colour.htm

René

I just picked up the 20 & 50¢ Widow Weeds pair today. So now I have to decide how to make up my album pages. I think I'm just going to keep it basic - one example of each major Unitrade entry. Trying to figure out all the varieties would be difficult enough, but my budget is somewhat limited. So 14 stamps will be on the main page. If I should ever get any of the colour, perf or paper varieties, (I doubt it) they'll go on another page.

Very nice and thanks for sharing - the SQs drive me crazy so I go for very short periods of time LOL

I have an extensive collection of the 3c with a couple of copies of the 37d, the best one is this cover. The closeup shows the nice colour on the stamp although it is a bit too bright on the scan.

The cover has a nice advertising back, the 2 ring 7 for St John (this is one of two correct places for the 37d) and a clearly dated postmark with the proper date along with the VGG Certificate.

Here is a closeup of one of the 1st Ottawa Printing reentries. You can see it most clearly in the D of CANADA but many of the letters in CANADA have some doubling. That is the nice early shade of the 3c Small Queen.

Nice one renden!

I had posted mine in another thread earlier but here it is again -


Not sure but I think the 37d can be determined using the place where it was postmarked from and the date ? 

Your copy has no date so not sure how can the cancel can be dated ? 

I have never done any sort of perforation study on Small Queens and I don't know anything about how accurate the original perforation machine was.  The numbers on the Kiusalas gauge (63, 64, 66, etc) represent the spacing between perf holes in thousandths of an inch, and a difference of .001" in the spacing is going to be extremely difficult to ascertain.  Even over a span of 14 holes (the vertical edge of the stamp) that's only .014" or less than 1/64".  Tiny, tiny.

There will also be accuracy questions regarding any scanner - they aren't $100,000 machines, they're $100 machines.  In any case, I did a quick digital fiddle on your image, taking the perforations from the right side of the stamp and comparing them to the left side and the top side.  There's a small inaccuracy from right to left and a fairly big inaccuracy from right to top.  If the scanner is relatively accurate (a big "if") then it doesn't look to me like your stamp has the same perforation on the top as it does on the side.



Of course, experts will know more than I do, so trust their opinion more than mine!

Ryan

Perf measurement re-done with 2 gauges and I have to admit that my 3¢ copper red does measure more likely 12X12 and thus would be a 37b
That is why we have this Forum of ideas and comments !! - Thanks 

René

watermark
happy for you......
when are you going to sell it   ?
René

Thanks jimjung for your comments on my 37b (not d) but scan does not reproduce the rusty color I have on my stamps and after many measurements (I will repeat) 12X12

René


Will re-scan just for the heck of it at 600 dpi (my 1st one was 600 also)

The chart at the beginning of this thread has the most helpful information on determining which periods the stamps were printed.

Mike