April-June 2013 Quarterly Collectors Pack

Well it's available today! And I had the day off work so I was a little excited to go pick it up and get the new issues into my alblum. But when I finally got home and tore it open...

Wait, first a little aside; I collect singles and souvenir sheets. All my classic stamps are single copies, all my modern stuff from the 50s through to the 2000s are singles. I only started collecting in 2010 and at that time I was pretty happy that Canada Post issued the collector packs so I could get the nice die-cut singles of the new self-adhesive issues.

Back to today's newly released collector pack; I got home and finally tore it open hoping to find the usual batch of singles and souvenir sheets. Instead I find a booklet pane of the Adopt a Pet issue and the complete booklet of the China Town Gates issue. If I wanted a booklet I would have just bought a booklet... months ago... and not waited patiently hoping to get die-cut singles!

I know every year there is at least one self-adhesive booklet pane in the quarterly pack. And it's always a bit of a pain trying to find decent looking used copies of those stamps to complete my singles alblum. But today, TWO issues that I will have to try to track down singles for. I know I could use the stamps myself, or just stick them to something and soak the gum off... but I wanted die-cut singles. Is that too much to ask?

Anyway, end of rant. Thanks for reading.

I'd use the booklet stamps.

I've never bought the Quarterly packs, even though I want the die cut singles as they are a separate collectible.

I buy a booklet, cut out what I need as singles and use the rest.

Unfortunately I no longer have extras of the two sets you need, or I'd send them to you.

I haven't bought either of the quarterly packs yet for this year so it is good to know what I will be getting when I do.

Blackjag, I've thought about cutting up the Adopt a Pet booklet pane, because I can separate the stamps into singles or pairs and leave a bit of the selvage. The Chinatown Gates would need to be cut into blocks of 4 though for the same effect. It's still not really ideal because I use Vario pages in my alblum, so the overall size of the block would just throw off the sizing. My booklets and souvenir sheets are in another alblum with the larger slot pages.

Besides, I like the look of the die-cut stamps. The little sim. perf'ed edges look nice against the black background. I am thinking of just sticking the stamps to a piece of paper and soaking them off to get rid of the gum. At least then I will get the singles with the serpentine edges. But 'mint no gum' just doesn't ring well with the modern self adhesives in my opinion. If I were going to go that far I might as well get them cancelled. Anyone know a post office that still has a CDS in the Kitchener/Waterloo area?