Another Stamp Oddity....

Hi guy

Sorry to bother you with another stamp oddity, but this is odd.
Look at the Scott #204 stamp and then a picture of the close up of the flag....

Am I seeing things or is there a British Ensign on an
American Stars and Strips flag...???

Looks like the flag of the British East India Company, but the SS Royal William never served the BEIC. The background of the flag should probably be solid red.

So you think it is a bit odd PostmasterGS

I believe it's a red ensign. I wouldn;t worry about the horizontal lines. After all the sky is striped as well.

I think the stripes on the main part of the flag are to reduce the intensity of the colour when printed so to suggest a red colour rather than a very dark one.

Here's a bit of postal trivia. Did you know that Canada Post was originally given a "proof" for the artwork of this stamp showing the wrong ship! It was caught before the stamp went into production, but here's an image of the original proof noting the error:

A number of years ago when Canada came out with some new bank notes, there was a stink because people thought the flag flying over the Houses of Parliament was a US flag. Turned out the image was of the original House which burned down in 1916. At that time we used the Red Ensign as our national flag (didn't get our own flag until 1965) and so that would have been what flew over the buildings at that time. Same situation, the engraving lines made it look like the stars and bars. And, as I recall, the Union Jack wasn't as clear as on this stamp, so the question lingered for some time. I think it may have been the $10 bill, but can't be sure.

nigelc...congrats on 1000 posts.

Thanks jamesw,wt1, PostmasterGS,and nigelc ....you provided a lot of interesting information

Thanks wert!

There is a heraldic convention for rendering colour in a monochrome way. See: http://www.iangrantofedinburgh.com/en_hy.html

According to the Library and Archives website (http://data4.collectionscanada.ca/n...anet/020117/ a href= /go/link.asp?target=https://www.ebay.com/itm/-/020117030107 target= _blank rel= nofollow 020117030107 /a _e.html&r=1&f=G&SECT3=POST, this stamp shows the Royal William presumably flying the British flag in 1832/1833.

According to Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Ensign), the blue ensign was the primary flag flown before 1864.

Thus, rendering blue as horizontal lines is according to the heraldic convention. The engraver has done his work exactly as expected.

studystamps...Thanks for those links...You are correct on the Blue Ensign.

Matter of fact, the Blue ensign was flying back as early as 1707.

Wow, the things one learns here...

Great info!