Canada 12d Black Specimen Proof

like many of you I will never be able to afford a original 1851 12d black stamp.

many of you probably own a specimen of this stamp with vertical red inscription. I see also with green inscription proof and with NO inscription proof.

I try to find information on these on internet but I don t find anything. So my question is these stamps are in big qty on the market ? When these stamps was put on the market ? they are not avalaible since 1851 ?

If I'm reading Lowe correctly, the balance of 12d stamps were destroyed on 1st May 1857. There were only 1450 issued. This gives me the impression that the 12d was only available for about 6 years.

Plate proofs (in black) and with specimen overprint in red, black and yellow are mentioned in Lowe's Encyclopaedia Vol. 5

This book was printed in 1973 and the values quoted were expensive then.

Here is the most current authoritative Canada proofs website:
http://www.bnaproofs.com/index.html

thanks for the website . but I don t see when these proof was released on the market and approximatly the number on the market..
perhaps these info are not known

You could email the authors of the website and ask them your questions.

The plate proofs were issued 1851-54. There are also posthumous die proofs printed between approximately 1864 and 1878 which are expensive.

I can't imagine there would be very many of either around.

i wrote a e-mail to the website owner. I will post his answer here just in case someone want the info. thanks for the link

Until 1990 the population of 12d proofs was quite low, then the archives of the American Bank Note Company came to public auction (Christies/Robson Lowe, now absorbed into Spink). 12d Specimen O/Ps sold in quantity at that sale, perhaps another reader could add concrete numbers to this post as I don't have the catalogue. They are mostly cut up into singles now, by no means are they rare but they are not common. I'll avoid guessing population.

Thx archerg !