On January 13, 1962, the first tagged stamps ever issued in North America were put on sale in Winnipeg, Manitoba.
Canada Post had chosen this western city to be the location of an experiment in machine sorting and cancelling which was to continue until 1972. These are the so-called `Winnipeg Tags`of Canada. After this date, almost all Canadian stamps appeared tagged.
I have reproduced below a card printed by the Winnipeg Chamber of Commerce explaining this issue.
It appears that they also created a set of envelopes to be used as First Day Covers for these stamps. It was only the small definitives that were treated at this point. You can find the return address for the Chamber on the envelope flap of these FDCs.
The Post Office also entered into the equation by using a special slogan cancel. It is to be noted that the cancel was not applied by the SEFACAN equipment as that was not yet installed. Early sales were in an attempt to make certain that the majority of the stamps being used in Winnipeg by the time the equipment was installed and used would be tagged.
It would not surprise me in the least to discover that the prominent Winnipeg dealer, Kasimir Bileski, was heavily involved in the production and issue of these items.
I also have scanned the reverse of the information sheet first shown. It is simply some statistics supplied by the Chamber of Commerce but I find it interesting to compare those with similar information about the city fifty years later.
Posted 06/19/2011 4:51 pm
