Cp's Latest Commemorative Issue Has Finally Turned Me Off.

OK so a single stamp to commemorate the CFL but to issue a stamp for each club in the form of 8 different team coils, 8 different team booklets, booklet with the Grey Cup and a S/S. I have decided to finish this year and then call it quits for any further new issues. I will use my all to valuable dollars to concentrate on the classics. Thanks CP for helping me to decide when this would happen. I should have done it when CP decided in it's wisdom to repeat the Lunar New Year issues.

serious collector

I agree with you completely. Canada Post has overdone it with the Canadian Football League/Grey Cup issues.

While there is some interest in professional football in western Canada, for many Canadians the CFL is of little significance. Canada Post chose an unappealing topic for its Super Gouging and may regret its folly.

It's time for Canada Post's philatelic customers to say enough is enough. The simplest way is to stop buying their junk. Besides, if you're lucky you may get 60% of face value when you decide to sell.

lorddenning

Having collected Canadian mint for the past 54 years, it appears that I can no longer support Canada Post by buying as I have always done.

For this new issue, I would have to buy:
- 9 sets of coil starter, middle and end strips of 4,
- 1 OFDC,
- 1 of my personally created FDC for the booklet stamps not on the the OFDC,
- 1 of my personally created FDC for the coil stamps not on the the OFDC,
- a single from each booklet (total of 10 stamps),
- one of each of the 9 booklets
- 9 post cards
- 2 souvenir sheets

This CFL issue would cost me a minimum of $225.00

Canada Post has obviously given up on stamp collectors and now concentrates on special interest groups such as football fans and the Chinese population for the Lunar New Year (after year, after year, after year) issues.

Surely there must be a press sheet in here somewhere?

Beesee they have a souvenir sheet of 8 stamps, they will sell to the sports fans. I live in Manitoba and cfl is big here, but for collectors its really over the top.

I phoned CP this morning and permanently removed coils and commemorative booklets from my standing order. They have been receiving complaints about the multiple stamp products for a single issue. I gave them the name of this website to look at to see how collectors feel about their current policy.

BlackJag

Thanks for calling Canada Post. Presumably you spoke with an employee in Antigonish, Nova Scotia, a Canadian Football League hotbed.

Is anyone else disappointed that the Ottawa Rough Riders weren't included in the group. OK, the team folded because the city could not support a CFL franchise but what about the nostalgia factor? And then what about those short-lived US teams that were added to the league in the mid 1990s: Sacramento Gold Miners, Las Vegas Posse, Baltimore Stallions, Shreveport Pirates, San Antonio Texans, Birmingham Barracudas, and the Memphis Mad Dogs? Aren't they deserving of philatelic commemoration as well. I'm sure longtime Memphis Mad Dog fans would relish the opportunity to purchase Mad Dog coils, booklets, post cards and OFDCs.

As an aside, CFL history buffs may have discovered a small oversight/error/exageration in Canada Post's July-September issue of Canada Details" magazines:

"Following the upheaval of the 1980s, flirting with bankruptcy, renaming the team [Montreal Alouettes] the Concordes, the folding of the team in 1987, and the absence of a CFL team in Montreal for nine years, the Alouettes were reborn in 1996."

The Alouettes weren't reborn. The CFL United States collapsed leaving the Baltimore Stallions as its only survivor. The Stallions moved from Baltimore to Montreal and called themselves the Alouettes. The only thing that was reborn was the name Alouettes. The current Montreal Alouette team was not founded in 1947 as stated in "Details" magazine.

It would be interesting to know how much the CFL is paying Canada Post for this promotion.

It's WIN-WIN situation for Canada Post. Money from the floundering CFL and money from its philatelic subscribers.

Seriously though, its is a shame that Canada Post is showing such disrespect for its customers. The solution is simple. Don't buy any of this junk.

I can understand everyone's predicament here.

I stopped buying the new issues in 2000!

However, having stated this, I get an annual set every Christmas from my S-I-L, so, I can't complain. I just don't actively seek the new issues any more.

I prefer the classics anyway. If I were to start all over again, I would not go beyond the period of WW 2. I strongly believe that there are far too many 'gimmicks' in the stamp world issued by most of the stamp entities as it is anyway.

Canada Post is quickly putting the nails into their own coffin it seems.

Chimo

Bujutsu

I'm increasingly discouraged by the poor quality and design of stamps in the last decade or so. The icing on the cake for me was the abominable response to the Diamond Jubilee. There was an opportunity to celebrate the event, and also the glory days of stamp design, with a tribute to the Victoria Jubilee series. What a disappointment. I wrote to Canada Post about this but had no reply. I collect only postally used stamps, so don't feel the added pressure to buy every tacky sticky-label new issue that comes out. But I still cringe as I save the ones that come in the mail. Thank goodness there are still classics.

I have a gut feeling these stamps will do very well,maybe not with collectors but with the sports fans. I live in Manitoba just south of Winnipeg and people bought a lot of the Jets stamps, So I think CP has found a market for there stamps.
Just look at sports fans they are willing to spend a few hundred dollars on a jersey some of them spend even more on tickets, Now the cfl does not command the prices like the NFL or hockey NHL but still there is a lot of money spent of memorabilia.
Look at the bright side it might help young kids to get interested in stamps and smaller business ( who's owners are sports fans ) to use the coils on there mail.
Next thing cp will be doing is a NHL .

I completely agree! I got my copy of Canada Post's Details and was shocked to see that many things for the CFL 100th Grey Cup Game. For this series I plan to buy the souvenir sheet with the eight CFL teams (for release 29 June 2012) and the special pane of 9 100th Grey Cup Game (for release 16 August 2012).

As of today, I've been to Canada Post (CP) Offices in New Lowell, Creemore, Stayner and Barrie (all in my area in Ontario).
None have received any CFL stamps other than the souvenir sheets.
Apparently they weren't able to even order the coils because that item has just appeared on their office order lists, after the CFL issue date.
Obviously these CFL stamps were rushed into production.
The good news - CP is proud of its largest issuance of a single subject to date.
The bad news - CP is proud of its largest issuance of a single subject to date.

My rural post office ordered each design and had them all (a box of each) for sale on the day of issue. Better than great service.

Today they also had the coil dispenser 'mail' box for our local team. Looks great.

Apparently, for this issue, they are not allowed to sell single stamps from a roll; they must sell an entire roll. Seems odd.

I can't afford to buy complete rolls of a ten stamp issue, when I only need a single of each.

Has Canada Post completely lost its collective mind?

Or is another attempt by Canada Post to discourage collectors from the hobby?

I ordered some rolls via the online shopping cart, just before the day of issue. They arrived quickly on July 4 (following the long weekend).

I had to go to Tornto today, so dropped into the Yonge Street north of Eglinton branch of Canada Post (a real post office with phlatelic stamps for sale).

The 'lead hand' said that he had read somewehere he could only sell complete rolls of the CFL issue. He only had the Argonauts roll.

Now I know why all of my local post offices within a 50 mile radius did not order any of the rolls - they knew that there wasn't a market for them with the "complete roll or nothing" condition attached.

I imagine that there won't be any self-made FDCs with the complete 8 "team" stamps of the CFL created, and if there are, they will be rare and quite valuable.