Is This Worth The Buck I Paid For It At The Flea Market?

Well the stamp itself isnt unless it's the error version of this joint Canada/USA issue OR if the content is something special or if there is someone significant involved eg: sender/receiver?

According to Sakatoonstamp in 2005

The St. Lawrence Seaway stamp of 1959 with Inverted Center, Scott #387a, is by far the most famous of these. Having been "the First" it will always remain the collectors' favorite … the most famous Canadian Error.

http://www.saskatoonstamp.com/prs_seaway.html

If the stamp is genuine, you've found the holy grail.........

Translating the french on the card would go like this :

Hello !
I would like to participate in your "yes and no" game.


It is sent to a television station in Montreal with no postal code in the address. Also, how would the TV station reply to this person !?!?

Anyways......look at the stamp. Does the center part (in blue) looks glued on or is it in one piece ? A close up scan of the stamp would be great. If this is genuine, you would need a certification and this would be by far the best purchase you ever made........

I magnified the image from 0 up to 800.

The blue area does look to have jagged edges.

That's pretty neat. Even if it is fake, someone went to a lot of trouble to send a postcard to the CBC.

Here' a little web article about the stamp. It states there are only 16 known examples on covers or postcards. Could yours be #17?

What am I missing here?

Oh -snap! It's the invert! Well then YES! most certainly worth your buck! Get a cert on that puppy ASAP cause if it's authentic you really REALLY have something there!

Just a quick afterthought - If someone was so inclined to fake this one wouldn't they have done a better job centering it? Like I said it was just a fleeting thought. The cancel looks a bit spotty though? (cut me some slack it's early morning here...ha-ha!)

My understanding is that this stamp was discovered by Kasimir Bileski, the well known Canadian stamp dealer. He used to order whole pads of panes of new issues to use in his mailings, and the error panes were among them. My information is that all used examples were sent by him to specific people who knew they were coming.

There was a phone number on the card but for privacy issues I removed it using MS Paint from the picture.

Timm, please show a hi-res example of the stamp. However, I think it is fake, as I believe all known copies have the bottom of the blue portion touching or over-lapping "Canada".

The cancel could be fake too.

There are more than a few of these "gag" inverts around that went through the mailing system.

What you need to do is provide 2 high resolution pictures of the stamp (NOT the postcard). One hi-res picture should show the entire stamp. The other hi-res picture should show one of the blue corners (make sure you include part of one of the red letters and also a couple of perforations as part of that blue corner pic.

If you have a filtered long-wavelength UV lamp, you can also look at it under the UV. Any "seams" will normally show up under the UV.

Wish I could to all that high-res and UV stuff. I just don't have the equipment or knowledge to do so.
Sorry.

Even if it turns out to be a fake... it's a GREAT ONE for a buck!

Seems to me like the Saskatoon Stamp Centre site shows some copies with the top of the letters touching the blue field and some that are not touching the blue field?? Cover 6 looks like at least the "CANA" are clear - cancel obscures the rest.

I'm rooting for you Timm!

Here is some good information on the Seaway Invert. Note the positioning of the blue on most of the stamps, as I mentioned above:

http://www.saskatoonstamp.com/prs_seaway.html

Edit: Oops, Bas S already posted the link

The pictures in Unitrade show the blue field resting on top of (but not overlapping) the red letters. The non-error stamp has a sizeable gap in-between, in the same area.

Images from the National Archives

1. Genuine Invert



2. Forgery attributed to Andre Frodel




3. A sheet I would like to have in my collection