Canada 3c 1911-1918 King George V In Admiral Uniform Varia.

After I uploaded these two Canadian stamps to ask about the shade differences (since I couldn't find the lighter stamp on "StampWorld" and the net in general) I said to myself: "darn it, I gotta find out for myself".

Luckily I did, on ebay. I am sure that the collectors of Canadian stamps know the about the differences. For those of you who don't know, here's what I found out on StampWorld & ebay: The one on the left was ID'ed on StampWorld as A85 AD2 PERF 12 Brown. The one on the right ID'ed on ebay as: Canada 1911 KGV 3c brown-ocher PERF 12 shade variation.

I examined these two beauties under a Van Cort loupe and noticed that on the Brown Stamp, the C in Canada is quite open, whereas the C on the Ocher stamp is nearly touching. There are other small design differences as well.

By the way; these will be in the upcoming Foreign Stamp Giveaway!

I hope someday that Scott's electronic version of the catalog will have click-able links to all of the variations and better illustrated information on identifying them.

Until then, thanks for reminding me that so many subtypes exist.

Kinda pricey stamps to be giving away, no? It's very generous of you. I'm looking forward to it.

SHhhhhhhhhouch, don't tell anyone. LOL

When does the giveaway start? Very kid of you btw!

Good job on the research, mudhut.
Another difference between these two stamps is that the stamp on left was produced by the dry print method, while the one on the right is a wet print.
The names of these two printing methods suggest exactly what they are. The Admirals were initially produced with the wet print method. With that, the paper is first moistened, printed, and then gummed. With the dry print method, the paper is dry and pre gummed for printing.
The results are, with wet print there is some shrinkage across the grain of the paper, which leads to the image area of the stamp shrinking either on the horizontal or vertical, depending on which way the fibres in the paper lay.
Your right hand stamp is notably shorter than its friend on the left.
I've taken the liberty of lining them up to show you. The red line at the bottom shows the difference in size.





The other indicator is the dry print method achieves better sharpness or clarity of the image. This is probably a consequence of the greater pressure needed in the press rollers needed during the printing process.
So, using Unitrade for ID, that would make the stamp on the right a 108 while the stamp on the left is a 108a. The 108 was issued on August 6, 1918, while the dry print 108a came out in 1923. Of course the ID number can be broken down even further, getting into the colour variations.
The brown 3¢ admiral was replace at the end of 1923 with a carmine (red) version, to conform with new UPU colour regulations set out at Madrid Conference of the UPU in 1920.

Hi josephswager,
Thanks for your interest.

Good luck in the giveaway and have a great day!

Follow this link to see the start date and time as well as all rules for this Foreign Stamp Giveaway.

https://goscf.com/t/39651

Good day jamesw,

Thank you for your kind compliment.

AND, thank you for your delving further into the differences of these two beauties.

I just noticed that on the left hand stamp, dry printing, the dark brown frame line remains contiguous while on the right hand stamp, wet printing, this same line breaks into a light brown above V's head. Original design or? of the brown-ocre?

I, and probably a lot of other people are grateful for your explanation between wet and dry printing. I read up on that a while back but cannot remember the exact criteria of both methods.

Pointing out the size difference the way you did, certainly compliments the written words and is also greatly appreciated.

I certainly hope that you will take advantage of the Foreign Stamp Giveaway coming up in 6 days. Being 1st, 2nd or 3rd,etc., won't make any difference in the quality or assortment of stamps, but will hopefully guarantee you get one of the 6 1/2 lots!

https://goscf.com/t/39651

Have fun and a great day!

hi mudhut.
It's difficult to see from your scan what you are referring to regarding the frame. But I do know that the earlier Admirals were open on the right straight side of the upper spandrel (that's the corner with the crown inside. The later issues were redrawn with a vertical line closing off that side.

Sometimes I can't type what's in my brain!

On the right hand stamp, look above the A at the end of Canada and the P at the beginning of Postage. I think you may see the break in the dark line going into a lighter brown and then back into the dark brown.

Hope this helps!

Hello,
Once again,many thanks, great information & still helping others years later
ATB...Jad.

Since the Admiral sheet stamps have vertically wove paper, the shrinkage on the wet stamps should be in the horizontal direction.