A Newfoundland #40 That Is Perforate Instead Of Rouletted?

To add another to the mix, here is a cover of proper use of 5 cents as letter rate from St Johns to Canada in 1880. The back has cancels at St Johns, Halifax and North Sydney.

On the topic of local perforation, one example I know of is the 1892 "emergency" stamp of Surinam. As a Dutch colony, Surinam's stamps were, of course, produced in Holland, but the Dutch department of colonies wasn't always on the ball, and in the summer of 1892 the governor was forced to take emergency measures when all supplies of 2 1/2 c. stamps had run out. A local printer (whose press was too primitive even for a proper bicolor printing) was tasked with producing what became known as the 1892 "hulpzegel". On the printing process used, see bulletin 4.4 (p. 57f) of the American Society for Netherlands Philately (available online at their website). The stamps were perforated, sometimes overly so (I have a couple with double rows of perforation), so a printshop in a colonial town in 1892 was apparently able to dream up a way to perforate, even without having ever printed stamps before. Unfortunately, I haven't found any info on how they did so.
Steven

stevenov21,


did you ever send this item to Greene and if so what was the verdict?

I have indeed received a Vincent Graves Greene foundation certificate stating that it is a genuine copy "but rouletted sides replaced by perforations". it comes with an accompanying letter in which J Edward Nixon writes "the five cent blue Seal Stamp perforated requires some further comment. In our opinion it is probably a rouletted copy that has been fraudulently perforated. However you may be interested to know that we have several of these in our reference collection. All are the same dark blue as your submitted copy. This dark blue shade is darker than the normal blue shade on the rouletted stamps. We do not believe these are the brown or black stamps with colour altered. All of the copies in our possession have a strange variety of perforations including different perforations on opposite sides of the stamp which is clearly not normal for any stamp. All the copies in our possession have the same cancellation as your submitted stamp. We are not aware of any evidence to suggest there was a sheet of proofs in dark blue that has been cut apart and privately perforated. Indeed they are very curious items."

It's interesting that they hedge their verdict with "probably". I'm going to see if I can dig up some more on it.