Flat Print Vs Rotary Print With The Medallion Issue

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Regarding the so-called flat and rotary printing of Canadian postage stamps in recent years, all 20th Century postage stamps have been printed on presses which are rotary in action. - that is, the plates are curved and are attached to Cylinders which describe a. complete circle during the printing process.

The Canadian Bank Note Co., who had the contract for printing postage stamps prior to 1930 and after 1935, use their own type of press which prints from curved plates by a rotary motion on individual dry and gummed sheets of paper ...according to the size of the stamps which are being printed. These presses, it is understood, are largely of the Company's own design and development, and apparently do not have any particular name. In the case of stamps issued in roll form. or "coils", two semi-cylindrical plates are used on a small press which prints the stamps on a continuous web of paper.

When the British American Bank Note Company took over the contract in 1930. they printed the l cent, 2 cent and 3 cent stamps, also some of the 5 cent, on the "Stickney" press, which prints from two semi-cylindrical plates on a continuous web of dampened paper that is gummed and dried on the press immediately after printing.

The following items were printed on the "Stickney" press from 1930 to 1935:

King George V - 1930 1c, 2c, 3c & 5c. Plates #1 & #2.
King George V - 1932, "Medallion" 1c, 2c & 3c.

On some of the Stickney press printings the "ridged" gum peculiar to this type of printing. was due to the action of two ridged steel rollers which "broke up" the gum when the web of paper was cut into sheets of 400 stamps and perforated in order to flatten out the roller-paper and make it stack readily into piles of 400/on sheets. This pressure was reduced almost to the vanishing point, as the manufacturers had found that when the web of paper was properly seasoned and not dried out too much, this process. which did not add to the appearance of the stamps, was not so essential as the manufacturers of the press had supposed. In some instances the sheets, although printed on the Stickney press. show very little of the "ridging", and this has given rise to the theory that there are some printings of the 1 cent, 2 cent and 3 cent values by the flat press method.

The only positive. means of identifying "flat" from Stickney "rotary" press printings, is the type of edge at the top and bottom of the 400/on sheet. On the Stickney press printings the edges are wavy or rough-cut, as made by a wavy-edged rotary knife - side edges are guillotined.

On the "flat" or' non-Stickney printing, the top, bottom and side edges are all straight cuts, all guillotined. These are collectible items, give them any name you choose.