Scott 544A Booklet - Different Stamp Sizes.

Was looking at one of my booklets and whie looking at the Scott 544a booklet, I noticed that the one cent stamp was bigger than the six cent and eight cent stamp..Strange why they would do that..???

Robert

Hi wert. This is not a mistake for sure. I have check in my booklets that contain these stamps of 6 and 8 cents and they are all the same height 16.2mm in BK69aii, di, e, ei, eii, f, fi, g, hiii, BK71a, b, c, d, and e. The 1 cents stamp is slightly bigger in all my booklets also at 17mm. Is your rule at scale, I do not have the same measures as your.

Pollux

Not a variety/mistake Pollux..But kinda strange they would not be all the same size.

Robert

Why: switch over to metric measurements, I believe.

In Canada, metric conversion is still, after 50 or so years, a bit of a myth. We buy our butter by the pound (454g) and milk by the quart (1.2l). Even more blatantly, wood products are explicitly sold by the foot. And you can't totally blame our proximity to the US, as we use imperial rather than US measures for liquids.

I doubt the metric system has anything to do with the small size difference. Yes, it certainly looks odd.

I suspect when the dies were engraved for the various denominations that slight variations in the size of each did not matter as Canadian stamps have rather wide margins between stamps. Each die worked well for making sheets/panes of its particular denomination. Without doing an extensive screening, it appears most (all?) of the combo booklets were issued later than the individual stamps were released. Only when placed next to each other did the small size difference become obvious, but there was no need to re-engrave the die for conformity. The combination worked to achieve the post office's needs and they went forward with it. It was a business/production decision without consideration for how collectors would view it.

Ya John...Figures it would be me that noticed it...Sorry, cant stop flyspecking...I will try to cut back..

Robert

I'll repeat, but more distinctly.

Canadian postage stamps went "metric" in September 1967 (the first stamp to use metric sizes was the 5¢ commemorative issued Sept 15, 1967 honouring Governor-General Vanier [Scott 474]).

All but three of the Centennial designs (6¢, 7¢, 8¢ Library) were first released February 8, 1967 using imperial measurements.

The 6¢ Centennial stamp was the first definitive issued under the metric standard for stamp size introduced late in 1967.

The Centennial Study Group newsletters (part of BNAPS) and my 434-page book, 1967-1973 Centennial Definitives, discuss these details.



See attached PDF which discusses the Centennial stamp sizes, presented with my (author) permission: www.adminware.ca/newsgroups/...tampSizes.pdf


Robin Harris

I see no problem with pairing dies made at different times with slightly different sizes. A logical production/business decision. Wert makes an interesting observation of the pairing. I find it interesting too.

Robin, I'll stand corrected on the timeline with regard to a change in image/stamp size. However, your page-link was not clear to me. While it clearly shows changes in both image and stamp size, all measurements both before and after are given in metric. It does not really demonstrate "Imperial to metric" which might (logically?) give the earlier die dimensions in Imperial measurements (perhaps then with the metric measure in parentheses beside it for easy comparison with the later sizes). Or alternatively, are there official documents or announcements regarding this switchover? I suspect they are detailed in the CSG reference, but they were not directly apparent from the page you link. I'm not trying to be critical, just seeking knowledge.

One source would be the Canada Post PS14 stamp announcement brochures.

Starting with the Vanier stamp (Scott 474), the brochures gave the stamp dimensions in "mm" instead of "inches".

I'll see if I can track down another source.

(Yes, it would be better if the table of dimensions in my book showed the imperial measurement.)

Robin