The Perforated Pence Stamps

From the above statement, one would naturally infer that such a useful innovation would be adopted at once, especially so when it is considered that the utility and convenience of perforation had already been amply tested and had proved eminently satisfactory in England. Unfortunately, no further mention of perforation is made in the Reports of succeeding years, and this absence of direct official evidence combined with the existence of certain facts has given rise to much theorising as to the actual date of issue of the perforated varieties, and as to whether the perforation was applied by the manufacturers of the stamps, by the Canadian Government, or by private parties in Canada.

Mr. Donald A. King in his article in the Monthly Journal says:—

In commenting on the above it will save undue confusion if we state that the copy of the perforated 6d on laid paper to which Mr. King refers was proved to be a forgery as shown by the following extract from the American Journal of Philately for 1891:—

With regard to the varieties perforated 13 and 14—while these are undoubtedly rare, all the evidence strongly points to the fact that they are unofficial varieties, a statement, we believe, which has never been seriously combated by students of the early Canadian stamps.

Thus, most of the “contrary” evidence adduced by Mr. King carries no weight with it at all. The most interesting point he raises is the fact that, though the 7½d and 10d denominations were current at the same time as the ½d, 3d and 6d, these values were not perforated. So far as the 10d is concerned this seems all the more strange when it is considered that one supply of this value was certainly printed after September, 1857, the date of the Report mentioning the adoption of perforation.

Mr. Howes has made diligent search through official records and carefully scanned itemised reports of more or less petty expenditures, and he was unable to find any reference whatsoever to a disbursement such as would have been necessary had the Government purchased a perforating machine or had the stamps perforated by some private concern. It is, therefore, unquestionable that the natural course—i.e., that the manufacturers should perforate the stamps—was the one followed.

The real root cause of all the problems surrounding these perforated stamps seems to lie in the general acceptance of the assumption that they were issued in 1857 or early in 1858—an assumption that appears to be entirely devoid of the support of tangible facts when the matter is scrutinised thoroughly. Mr. Howes has delved into the subject with his usual thoroughness and his deductions are so well founded that we imagine no unbiased student will venture to do other than agree that his findings are fully borne out by the history of the stamps so far as we know it. We, therefore, make no apology for reproducing his arguments in full:—

In our table above we have given the supplies received after the 30th September, 1857, and deducted the remainders so as to have the actual number issued. The 10d has already proved a stumbling block, for it was not perforated at all! Next we find the 6d to the number of 150,000, when the total issue, including the laid paper, was but 400,000; yet the catalogue value of the imperforates is some $6 for each variety, and of the perforated stamp at least $30! Can anyone doubt that all these 150,000 6d stamps were not perforated? In the case of the 3d we have one and a third millions to compare with a total issue of three and a half millions—about a third in the supposed perforated class. Yet the catalogue value of the latter is $2.50 against 36 cents for the wove paper imperforate alone. With the ½d stamp there are two millions against a total of three and a third millions, or about two to one in favor of the supposed perforated stamps, yet the latter are double the catalogue price of the former! The only conclusion to be drawn from these regularly appearing inconsistencies in each value is that all the supplies after 30th September, 1857, were not perforated, as the 10d stamp very glaringly intimates!

If this be so, is it not possible that the order to perforate the new supplies was given to the manufacturers much later than has hitherto been thought to be the case? It hardly seems likely that this improvement would be ordered for a few supplies and then dropped, only to re-appear a year and a half later as a permanent feature of the new set. Once adopted it was more than likely to be retained.

Let us see, then, just for curiosity's sake, what the supplies of the last six months of issue yield us for data. For the ½d we find 850,000 roughly, with 60,000 remainders. Call it 800,000 issued which, if perforated, would be a quarter of the total issue of ½d stamps, or a ratio to the imperforates of one to three. This is not so far away from the catalogue ratio of two to one (inversely, of course,) in the value of the perforated stamps. With the 3d stamp we have 450,000 roughly, with 20,000 remainders, say 430,000 issued. Of a total issue of 3,500,000 this represents one-eighth, or a ratio of one to seven. The inverse ratio of seven to one for catalogue value comes pretty close when we compare $2.50 with 36 cents! In the case of the 6d there are 70,000, less 17,500 remainders, or 52,500. This is approximately one-eighth the total issue of 400,000, or again a ratio of one in seven. The inverse ratio of seven to one for a catalogue value would make the perforated stamp list $42 with the imperforate at $6. But both laid and wove paper 6d stamps list at approximately $6, whereas, if all had been issued on but one variety of paper, we might find, perhaps, a single list price of, say $4. With this as a basis, the catalogue value of $30 for the perforated 6d is in as close agreement with our supposition as are the others. And, best of all, the second supply of the 10d stamp is disposed of without any difficulty whatever under this hypothesis!

It may be argued that reasoning thus from catalogue prices is too uncertain to prove of value. Granted in many cases. But here is an issue from fifty to sixty years old; the stamps were regularly used in increasing numbers during their years of issue; they have always been popular and eagerly collected, so that the stock in existence has been pretty well handled and pretty well distributed. Under these conditions the catalogue prices should by this time reflect fairly accurately the relative rarity of the main varieties of each stamp at least; and it is this relative rarity that we are after in order to approximate the original supplies of the main varieties. The result is certainly of more than mere interest, the agreement being such that we are tempted to lay down the following propositions in regard to the perforated stamps for further proof or disproof:—

These three perforated stamps do not provide much variation in the quality of the paper. Most of the stamps are found on a hard wove paper, varying slightly in thickness, and though the ½d and 3d are listed on ribbed paper, we venture to doubt that this is a true ribbed paper for the reasons set forth in our last chapter.

Mr. King records the 6d bi-sected diagonally and the halves used as 3d stamps, but, as in the case of the similar variety in the imperforate issues, there could have been no real need for such bi-section.