Starting Canada Tomorrow (Tips?)

well, I've worked thru some of my stock and I'm on C for Canada, my extra stamps are heavy in Canada so I'm actually kinda dreading this as it does not look like a simple lick and stick job here. looks like I have 20 pages of stock without any info ranging from 1840ish thru 1970... lots of catalog work here..

start at the beginning and go to the end...

The Unitrade Specialized Catalogue of Canadian Stamps is the catalogue to get for that job. Uses Scott numbers but has a lot of the varieties and extras.

On ebay a new one is $40 probably. For the older stuff you can use an older one I suppose. Not too old though. They have been working away on it over the years gone by and have sharpened it up muchly. Extra colour pics of shades and some extra info also. Not sure if 2011 is out now but it is doe in the Fall anyway.

Would love to see some of what you have too sometime.

Well puzzler let me see how my camera will do, as I really don't want to take the book apart for a scan.
I'll show you what my BLANK pages turned into last night and today... were talking virgin pages. 1840-1940

after my long night and morning this is what I ended up with, hmmm it was more impressive in person it was a lot of work for a newbie! BTW, I tried a few different compression and camera sizes so I hope we can see these.

Thanks Edwin!

Your fine work makes me think back to when I had albums (use Vario pages now, not so many stamps as before, it's sad) and when I had a bunch of stamps all hinged in. What a good feeling to sit back and see the collection as it got slowly finished (is it ever finished?) and be happy with the work I had done. Quite relaxing too, as you mentioned somewhere else also.

I like those squared circle cancels on the Small Queens. I like those older stamps, just one colour and kind of simple and pure or something like that. I see you have a few colour variations also. There are a couple web sites on the Small Queens alone.

Most of your stamps are really nicely centered too. That looks so much better when you get a page done or a group. Harder to do with some older ones too.

You have some nice socked on the nose cancels on the 4c and 5c KGV Admirals too. Adds to the allure, seeing where and when it was used.

The KGV Medallion series is always striking, nice ones also that you have.

One thing about the KGV 10c red RCMP horse and 13c violet Confederation stamps is that on ebay a while ago, some fellow was selling these with re-entries (extra bits engraved by mistake). That had not been mentioned in the catalog I had at the time and I don't know if it is yet. You have to look closely and best to scan at 600dpi or better to see clearly. I saved some pictures from his auctions if you want to see them.

However, that is called fly-specking, looking for minuscule differences amongst same stamps. Not everyone's cup of tea.

You can get into that with the Small Queens and the Large ones too is almost a must, some command a fine premium.

But all in all, a fine looking lot of Canada you have there.

You can take a look at this page for more information on re-entries - his site contains examples from many countries, but he is primarily a collector of Canadian stamps.

http://www.re-entries.com/index.html

Constant plate varieties are also well studied here in Canada. Whereas a re-entry is sort of like accidentally making a partial second impression of a stamp on the printing plate, a constant plate variety is more like making a scratch or some other mistake. The most famous ones, like the Mountie with the broken leg, are covered in the Unitrade catalogue, but this book by Hans Reiche also lists many minute specks and scratches.

I very much like Reiche's pricing methodology, which gives a percentage premium over the current catalogue value (whatever that value might happen to be) rather than a fixed value, which becomes outdated as time marches on.

Ryan

I'd love to see the example picture of the fly specking on those, if you have it handy. EDIT:(opps, you did it while I typed!)

I finished Canada today up to 1960, the rest are looked up and attached to a back stocked pages till I get Albums 5 and up.

I know alot of you will laugh but now my highest value stamp is $10.00 WHOOT, I was excited to finally see a few non min values in Canada.
I'll get there, one day at a time

I don't agree that you need a new - or even recent - Unitrade catalogue. If you are just starting, get a five year old one - maybe $5 or so for it. It will do for a start.

I don't agree that you need a new - or even recent - Unitrade catalogue. If you are just starting, get a five year old one - maybe $5 or so for it. It will do for a start.

Thank you Ryan for correcting my mistaken understanding of what a re-entry was. I am only vaguely aware of them and all the fantastic work done on them (Thank you for the web site link also.).

I have a 2007 Unitrade for $10.00 CDN plus actual cost of postage from Ottawa, Canada to wherever you are. It's Edwin's if he wants it, and if he declines, the first to make a claim gets it.

Peter

Petermac, that's an awesome deal however I don't really have anymore Canadian stamps I was able to find and place all my current stock, plus I just bought complete 2006 and then the next week 2008 scotts catalogs followed by a 2008 specialized, I think I have enough to start looking thru before I graduate to the big boy stuff.

Hopefully there is someone that will put it to better use than me.

Ed

Edwin,

The only tip that I can give you with all the hard, back breaking work that you will be doing is....Blame It On Canada!.....Sorry, I just couldn't let this one go by....lol

Don't blame it all on Canada...but do be sure to give us credit for the good stuff! (Especially back bacon, the zipper, the telephone, etc.)

Peter

Just curious...
Why do you keep posting threads about Canadian stamps in the US forum?

I didn't see the Canadian section when I posted I was just thinking Scotts pre 1940 VOL #1..

if it helps, its pre 1940, and I'm in the US...