Canada's Efos And Weird Mistakes.

SC 595 Type 1 OP2
Just going through some of my Landscape definitives, as well as the usual Blue Tails, raised rumps, I found a few with some strayed white print from the word CANADA.
See two attached plus normal…one has a small white tail on the 'a' , the other has a join between the d and the a plus small bits of white on the a

Hello Rfw125, In looking at your pictures, it certainly looks like "strayed white print". But... the interesting part about this is that there is no white ink involved in this printing. The white we see happens to be the paper itself that the stamps are printed on. Your third picture is beautifully clear and if you look carefully you may see that the edges of the white part are rather jagged. If it had been extra ink, it would flow more softly around the edges.
What you have is sometimes called "pulled ink" (I'm sure there is an official philatelic term for it somewhere) which can happen when ink is not yet fully dry and the glue from a sheet deposited on top sticks a little and pulls some of the ink off.
Sometimes it is also possible to see this effect on damaged stamps (yours don't look damaged) that may have been through a very rough handling at the post office or elsewhere.

BK80….thanks for response….interesting No white ink….they must shape or put something in to get the word Canada to come out. Although they are used stamps, they don't look damaged…bit of heavy stamping in places but not near the word Canada.
Here's the two stamps and also a better picture of the tail on the 'a'

Yes Rfw125, you are exactly right, the letters are shaped out. If you go to the bottom of this page, click on page 8 and you will see that Steve123 posted a block of 2 cent green where the letters and numbers are shaped out. Just below that Alanl posted a 32 cent Nickel stamp where the number and the word Canada are shaped out. Since the paper is white, this makes it easy for the printers and those words and letters are always in the same position relative to the inked areas.

You are right that these are not damaged so the blue ink around the lettering got pulled off somehow.

I will look for an example of "pulled ink" on a modern stamp and post it so we can get a look at it.

Here is an example of "pulled ink" on Canada #800.




The way these are printed explains in some way how this is possible. They are printed on a continuous web of paper so they are not put directly on another sheet of printed stamps. Rather the continuous web is printed and dried "on the run" and at the other end of the big printing machine are re-wound unto another large cylinder before the next operation.

Think about this for a moment. The roll of paper is continually unrolled as it prints and re-rolled on itself fully printed.


This means that the glue of the following stamps will eventually touch the top of the already printed roll of paper. (Think roll of toilet paper being attached to a printer then re-wound on another cardboard roll on the other side.)


The evidence for this is on the glue side of the Canada Booklet 80. The number 5 and other parts of the stamp ink often show up and always on a different part of the back. Simply, the re-wound roll keeps changing size so the set-off of the number 5 on the glue changes position vertically.

As you can see on this number 5, the ink is pulled away from the paper and leaves a blank area, usually jagged. There are areas where the ink is not completely pulled off.

This is different from "unprinted areas" we can sometimes find on stamps. (donuts and such)

I hope this is understandable. If you disagree, please let me know. I'm not all knowing and I can certainly be wrong.

Very knowledgable ….thanks again

Hello, here's one of my favourite errors (and yes it has a cert!):

Wow,
This is amazing and it fits perfectly in this discussion.
Now, I am aware that these are printed 10 rolls wide. There have to be a few more around.
Any idea about provenance?
Bk80

This item originally came from the John Hillmer estate, and I acquired this item about 2009. Supposedly there should be two or three examples similar to this. I've nicknamed it the "Mount St. Helens" variety.

Wow! That takes "philatelic stippling" to a whole new level.

Just bought two Salomey Bay blues singer stamp booklets today, both with some sort of defect on the upper right stamp. I went at two post office and check about 30 of them, all containing the same defect. What about yours?

Image under Long wave light, different exposition time.

This is an interesting little flaw with the tagging. I did not buy any of these yet. I suspect that the flaw appears only on some sheets. Not sure about this. Maybe someone else bought these and could look at their stamps. This may turn out to be a constant flaw on the upper right stamp. You're making me take a trip to the post office.

Canada 197c plate block with horizontal wavy cutting line on top and no horizontal top perforations.

I have a similar bottom left (?) to compare. Interesting...note the wavy line at the bottom. The gum side of these stamps shows distinct horizontal lines that divide the stamps into four. Perfectly normal?

This has been noted as a fake. After comparing other images on line I do see differences in the fine linework. The colour might be a bit light too. It would be imperforate coil 1194Bf or Biii from 1990. Two different paper types I guess.