A Possible New Direction To Head Into On Centennial Booklets

This week I started working on a lot of Swedish booklets for the weekly auction when I started noticing aspects of them that looked identical to things I had seen with the Centennial issue booklets:

1. Counting marks that look identical.
2. Spotty white gum on some of the 1969-1971 booklets.
3. Minute divots in the card stock of the booklet covers that I have also seen on many of the Centennial booklets
4. Control numbers in the selvedge that look identical to those found on some BK58's, 59's and 62's.

and so on. As I started looking them up in Facit to get them ready to list, I read the introduction to the booklet section. Here I learn that Sweden used Goebbel multicolour printing presses to produce all their booklets - the very same presses used by BABN. So I get the idea that there will probably be many of the same varieties on the centennial booklets that I find on the Swedish booklets - maybe not all of them, but some for sure.

Now, Facit, being a European catalogue is much more extensive in its listings than Scott would be, and I started noticing varieties that Facit lists that had to do with attributes that I have never thought to check on the Centennial booklets, because there was no listing anywhere that would suggest that there were collectible variations in these things. Examples would include:

1. The dimensions of text lines and blocks on the covers and the spaces between them.
2. Whether the cover spines are folded, scored to assist in folding shut, or rouletted, and if so how many roulettes.
3. Whether panes were glued onto covers by machine or whether some were assembled manually.

These are just a few examples. I came up with a list of about 11 attributes that we could re-examine on the Centennial booklets that may turn up some new discoveries. So, even if you choose not to become a Sweden collector generally, having some of the material from the Centennial period to help illustrate the aspects you are looking at studying would be helpful, as a way of showing the significance of the variations.

I'd be interested to hear feedback about my findings in the blog post that I published on the topic, which you can access here:https://brixtonchrome.com/blogs/can...nnial-period

I'm not on this forum very often, because I am usually extremely busy with my weekly auction. However, if you wind up posting a comment, it would be greatly appreciated if you would copy and paste it to an e-mail at: info@brixtonchrome.com.

The Corgi Times (bi-monthly newsletter of the Elizabethan II Study Group of the British North America Philatelic Society) ran a 16-page supplement in the Jan-Feb 2010 issue titled The Goebel Press Era of Canadian Stamps by Ken Sargent and Leopold Beaudet.

Any collector of Canadian Elizabethan stamps should be a member of this study group. With that said, BNAPS has a stipulation that to join one of their many study groups, one must be a member of BNAPS. With that said, the first 162 issues of the Corgi Times (including the Goebel supplement) are available for download to anyone.

Robin, I am aware of the work that was done on the BK69's that you included in your book on the Centennial issue, but am not aware of anything else. I'd be interested to see this work to see if Mr. Sargent or Mr. Beaudet looked at the same attributes that I am referring to, and if they found any interesting differences. I actually am a member of BNAPS, but I must confess that I am so busy with my weekly auction that I have never had time to visit the website, or to check to see what is published there. I'll have to look into it.

I agree with Robin about the "Goebel Press Era..." article and there is also another little gem published by Canada Post in 1980 about the production of Booklet 80 on that same press. It is concise and super informative: Philatelic Bulletin Vol 2 - No. 4. It is easy to find if you have a copy of Robin's Book: "Environment Definitive Series 1977-1987 (Second Edition)" Pages 463-464. This super informative article about the production of booklets on the Goebel Press is reproduced in it's entirety.
Ken Sargent in the article with Leopold Beaudet mentions that modifications were made to the original press to accommodate their particular needs.
My research is with Bk80, it is totally relevant to your article and I will reply at length to your website as soon as I can.
J.P.

Hi Jean Pierre! I'd like to read these to see if they address the attributes I have mentioned, and to see what they have discovered for the other issues.