Canadian Specialized Catalogues

Will Gandley also came out with this Canadian FDC catalogue.
First time I had seen a catalogue exclusively for FDCs, so I had to buy it.
The price was right even for 1976.

This little handbook by David Gronbeck-Jones might not be a catalogue per se but it is specialized study of The Centennial Definitives Of Canada



At that time in 1972 there wasn't much info available(at least to me)
about this complex issue and I was thrilled when I bought it.
I spent hours with it comparing what varieties had been
discovered and what I had.
That Centennial issue gave me a lot of enjoyment and many times I
waited in anticipation for orders I had placed with the Philatelic Section to arrive.
Usually they sent exactly what I ordered whether gum type,
tagging, plate numbers, etc.

Below are a couple of pages from the book. You can see why the
author said that the printing of this handbook lacks frills.
But I didn't care because it had tons of information which I had never seen before and was anxious to learn.

I still have a copy of the 1968 11th edition of the Holmes' Specialized Philatelic Catalogue of Canada and Brtitish North America. It was an expensive hard-covered volume and I wonder if it is still published (but I expect not) Unitrade seems to have become the standard these days and I believe it to be the most detailed I have seen although there are some items in the last Darnell I bought that you won't find in Unitrade (and probably vice-versa).

That's great stuff, litho.

I think a lot of people regularly forget that much of the heavy lifting in philately happened decades ago, and much of that information hasn't routinely reappeared.

That, to me, is why literature is so addicting.

Unfortunately the Holmes Specialized Canada Catalogue has long been out of print.

As the years go by,the Unitrade Catalogue seems to get better for more varities listed.

Chimo

Bujutsu

Here are a couple more from my library collection.

Chimo

Bujutsu

Bujutsu,I believe I've seen the David Gronbeck-Jones one
but not the other.
You have quite a collection.
Do you ever throw anything out?

LOL not sure Litho. Maybe this is a reason I cannot find my way to some of the rooms in my house - just kidding.

I do have a large library though and I still find myself adding to it every now and then.

I have scanned another book I nearly forgot about. This was for the Canadian Centennial stamps only and by an author named Jacques J. Laroche. it broke the Centennial issues down nicely and even had "SAMPLE" stamp from the 1 cent issue (real stamps I mean) to describe the paper and phosphor type.

Chimo

Bujutsu

I enjoy looking for plate varieties on common stamps, and that's a lot more fun when you have catalogues that list such things. Hans Reiche has written a number of booklets on the varieties that can be found on older Canadian stamps, and here's the one I like to use the most.



It has an interesting system of pricing things - instead of using fixed prices, he uses a multiplier. Add that multiplier to the current catalogue value and you have an idea of the value of the variety. That's real handy for the future when dealing with old catalogues that still have good info but whose prices have become unrealistic.



Ryan

As I recall Ryan, Hans Reiche was on of the premier personalities

of Canadian stamp collecting and according to Wikipedia was

a world authority on Canadian stamps.

That's a great piece of stamp literature you have there.

Hans Reiche produced a lot of good reference books and they are still considered the bible for some of his plate variety studies of different Canadian stamps. He was especially heavy into the Admiral series.

I bought a war time book about spies in Canada an the title of the book was called "Deemed Suspect". Believe it or not, Hans Reiche was one who was deemed suspect but, was proven to be no threat to Canada. In fact, he escaped from Germany before or during the war years.

In the list of suspects, the name comes up as Reiche, Hans - - Stamp Dealer. An interesting read to say the least.

Chimo

Bujutsu

Here is another one of Hans Reiche's books.

Chimo

Bujutsu

Yes, that's another one in my collection. Here are the others - I suppose I could have included the Canada Precancel Handbook, he's listed as an Associate Editor or some such thing on the cover of that one.



I confess, I haven't been able to make much use of the colour identification booklet. Obviously a bunch of trouble was gone through in order to produce it - it's even been printed in Switzerland, undoubtedly the result of searching to find somebody who could accurately reproduce the colour. But still, I don't quite get the point - here's an inside page, showing a monthly calendar of shades of the 1c green. (Granted, it's a poor photo, the pages are glossy and if I used enough light all I got was glare, and the scanner is currently kaputt.)



Ryan

For many years Hans Reiche wrote an article in each issue of The Canadian Philatelist entitled "Postmarked Ottawa". This might be of interest from one of the 1996 issues:

Thanks for that Hans Reiche article, cynical.

Amazing that at 76 he was indirectly a participant in the
first Iraqi war.

Is the stamp mightier than the sword ? LOL