Canada Small Queens Sc38 Or Sc42

This looks like SC 42 ??

Very nice strip of 3

It doesn't look like Slate Green, but being so yellow who knows how that affects the grey color to the eye, might make it look a little green. My 42 looks truly grey - a light black. I don't have a 38.

As many have said before, color shades are nearly impossible to discern on a computer monitor, especially when scanned with different equipment and different lighting conditions.

The strip of 3 looks like a photograph, not a scan, using warm incandescent light, hence the overall yellow tone.

Here are examples of 38 and 42 from the Thomas Meyerhof collection. Maybe this will help if you compare the original strip in person.

Also note there are a bazillion intermediate shades of both these stamps, with the 38s tending towards the greenish end of the spectrum and the 42s towards the blackish and brownish.

Do you have a scanner that you can use to post another picture using controlled light?

Difficult to say based on the image. Here are examples from my collection:

If you have the unitrade catalogue , page 47 has a list with perforations and paper types to help narrow it down. Also the squared circle, I am having a hard time determining it. Appears to be T---0-RO-- something with 10 characters?

I would think it is #38 just by the date stamp. Ju 7 86,
since #42 didn't come out till 1888/89

Trodent

PETERBOROUGH?

Yes, Trodent, Peterborough appears to fit. And by using that date, #38 would be a Montreal printing.
Now just determine the perforation. Acording to the table I mentioned earlier 12 x12 would be a 38 which was slate green, while a perf of 11 1/2 x 12 = 38a which was olive green

Yes it is a photograph, I will try and scan it in.
Thanks for all the responses

Almost surely its a strip of #42 because that Peterborough squared circle is dated JY 7 96, the rightmost strike the clearest.
Almost all #38 Montreal printings had been used up by then, especially from a larger p.o.

I would say there is a clear arch to the lower left of the loop in the year. I.e., 86 and not 96.

The postmark slipped when struck. Look at the month JY.
It is impossible to be 86 unless the clerk inserted the indicia incorrectly as Squared Circles weren't used until 1893 onward.

Well spotted. The doubling is very visible in the 4 above the date.

The Peterborough squared circle postmark was not used before 1893, so it is certainly dated 1896. 99% sure it is a #42.

edit: didn't see back2paul's reply at first, I second his comment.