A Few Questions About First Day Covers

Still stuck in China with no access to reference books so I thought I would ask here.

1. Canada Post makes the Official First Day Covers. What was the first one they made officially?

2. Before the official ones, did they make unofficial ones, and if so, when did that start?

3. Does Canada Post make a First Day Cover for every stamp they release or just commemorative stamps?

4. I plan to buy a reference catalogue when I get back to Canada. Recomendations?

The catalogue you want is the Unitrade Specialized Catalogue of Canadian Stamps by The Unitrade Press

The only version I have of that catalogue here is from 2012 and they don't have listings of first day covers. Do they now?

I could be wrong, but I think the first Canada Post FDCs were for the Maple Leaves in Four Seasons set of four issued throughout 1971 - April 14, (Scott 535) June 16 (Scott 536), Sept. 3 (Scott 537) and Nov. 19 (Scott 538).

I have had Canadian experts tell me in no uncertain terms that the creation of FDCs by Canada Post thoroughly destroyed the new FDC market, as Canada Post outsold everyone and put private cachet makers out of business. There remain some private FDCs thereafter and those carry a premium, thus the following statement in the Unitrade catalog: PLEASE NOTE: From No. 535 on, FDCs with cachets other than Canada Post command a premium.

The last column for each listing in the catalog is FDC.

Wow. Years reading and re-reading that catalogue here and I never noticed that column. Just checked. Feel silly now. Thanks.

I am again not 100 percent, but I think Canada Post still creates FDCs for most products. It currently has 53 covers on sale on its website.

Hopefully a real expert will hop on here and offer a few more answers for you. Again, I am not sure, but uncertain whether Canada Post created any official FDCs before 1971.

Check out this link to the Postal History Corner and scroll down
to Canada Post Office
General Purpose Cachets
1949 - 1973


https://postalhistorycorner.blogspo...t+day+covers

Thanks. So it looks like they used a generic image from 1949 until 1973, when they started to make colourful and individual images on the envelopes. How does something like this fit into this? If it is a private one, is there a name on it somewhere showing who designed it?

There is the Specialized Catalogue of Canada Post Official FDC
by A. Chung & R.F. Narbonne

Unitrade Associates has it for $21.95

And still a bit confused. They went from nice first day covers like the one I posted to generic ones in 1949?

The Post Office Department only started in 1949 with
these replacement FDCs
Prior to that they were all done by
private sources, just like yours was.

So if they were done by private sources, which one is listed in the Unitrade catalogue? An average price for all of them? I imagine there might be more variation in a specialized FDC catalogue but which ones are the default in the specialized Unitrade catalogue?

Looks like Northwind Stamps is selling a similar FDC as yours for $185.
They call it the George Eppstadt Cachet.


https://northwindstamps.com/product...-cachet-1927