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The following three articles appeared in the newsletters of the
Canadian Re-entry Study Group of BNAPS.
YET ANOTHER 1¢ NUMERAL MISPLACED ENTRY --- OR ??? by R.Trimble (Canadian Re-entry Study Group Newsletter #20 Sept.-Oct. 1985)
Well folks, I don't know how he does it, but Dr. Warren Bosch has come up with yet another spectacular 'error' on the part of the siderographer! As if the 1¢ Numeral of the Sept.-Oct. 82 issue and the 1¢ KE7 of the May-Aug. 84 issue were not enough, Warren has found another incredible 1¢ Numeral! If you look carefully at the photos you will likely shake your head, as I did, when you notice the Misplaced Entry about 6.2 mm above the L.R. corner and about 0.6 mm out into the right margin! On the actual stamp you can literally count the four fine lines that make up the lower frameline. There is also the bottom line of the RNB the correct distance above the frameline. But now for the OR part of the title - and this is really something - the other visible details just don't jive with the normal 1¢ design! Above the misplaced RNB baseline you can see a heavy, clearly curved mark which should be a remnant of the 1, BUT I don't think it can be! For one thing it's curved, and if the 0.6mm extension of the bottom frameline is indeed the corner of the frame (and I'm not yet convinced it is), then this 'curved' remnant of the 1 is much too far to the right! Also, if you notice in the white oval near the back edge of the Queen's veil, there is a vertical line extending up into the oval. This should represent the left vertical line of the RNB, (theres nothing else it CAN be), but then it is much too far to the left. In fact, it is directly above the actual left side of the normal RNB. If this were indeed the left vertical line, then it too should be shifted over 0.6mm. The other visible detail is the odd group of markings in the veil just to the right of the Queen's necklace. In fact two horizontal lines extend into the right jewel of the necklace. These are directly in line with the bottom line of the RNB, not the bottom frameline. Gathered around these lines are a number of 'radiating' lines that do not 'fit' the corresponding lower section of the design measured from the L.R. corner. All in all, a confusing , yet fascinating puzzle! So what could it be? Dr. Gray Scrimgeour saw my photos at the recent (1984) P.S.S. dinner and right away suggested that maybe it was a 2¢ entry. Sounded GREAT, but on further study, that didn't fit either. But this put the seed in my mind! If the vertical line in the white portrait oval is indeed the left vertical line of a RNB, and with the clearly curved portion of 'something' quite visible, could it be yet ANOTHER Numeral denomination --- one that has a wider numeral box than the lower values? I don't own (and haven't yet borrowed) a 10¢ or 20¢ Numeral to photograph at the same size and make comparisons and measurements, but that curved line does look like it could be part of a 0, and just looking at photos in the catalogues, the numeral boxes for these values are definitely wider, by necessity, than the 1¢ numeral box! So, does the Numeral Issue have its very own version of the 5¢ on 6¢ S.Q? I don't know yet, but I'm going to keep working on it. I'd appreciate hearing your comments, ideas or suggestions.
A SECOND CANADIAN DOUBLE DENOMINATION??? - AN OPINION by R.Trimble (Canadian Re-entry Study Group Newsletter #27 Nov.-Dec. 1986)
With all that's been written about the Small Queen 5¢ entry on the 6¢ design, including the on-going series right here in our own Newsletter, it is still generally believed that this is the only time that a foreign transfer (i.e. the design of one stamp erroneously entered over that of a different stamp) ever occurred on a Canadian stamp! Well, I am prepared to go out on a limb here and suggest that it happened AGAIN while the Numeral Issue was in use! You are all familiar with the 1¢ Numeral 'Misplaced Entry' discovered by Warren Bosch that I first presented in the Sept.-Oct. '85 issue and updated in the last issue. In that former issue (#20), I suggested the possibility that this Misplaced Entry might actually be part of the design of the 10¢ or 20¢ Numeral. The 20¢ can be eliminated due to the type of lines that make up the frame --- it was drawn with two heavy lines (Boggs p.330) --- and the Misplaced Entry shows remnants of four fine lines which are characteristic of most of the Numerals. This leaves the 10¢. I recently acquired a clear copy of this stamp to use for comparative purposes, and based on measurements involving the misplaced vertical line of the RNB, the distance of this line from the heavy curved line that raised the question in the first place, the distance of the curved line to the outer edge of the misplaced frame (both to the right and to the frameline below), I have come to the conclusion that this entry COULD VERY WELL BE that of the 10¢ design! I am convinced that it cannot be the 1¢ design for all the reasons discussed in my original article, and having compared it to the 10¢ design, I am prepared to venture that we do indeed have a second Canadian foreign transfer or double denomination!! How this could happen is still just as much of a mystery as how the 5¢ on 6¢ S.Q. happened! As with the latter, it could be due to the siderographer preparing to re-enter the position and choosing the incorrect transfer roll. The 1¢ and 10¢ Numeral designs are almost identical (even more so than the different designs of the 5¢ and 6¢ Small Queens) and both involve a 1 in the design! Over-rocking of the transfer roll is often suggested for the 5¢ on 6¢ S.Q., but this would mean the transfer roll would have to have both designs on it The 1¢ and 10¢ Numerals WERE both issued in 1898, so I suppose this could be possible, but again the problem of the designs not being centred properly on the transfer roll is a concern (as it is for the 5¢ on 6¢ S.Q.). Another explanation could be contained in a recent note to me from Hans Reiche. I had asked Hans what he thought of all the wonderful misplaced entries that Warren was discovering. He replied that they certainly were very interesting, but instead of being misplaced entries they could have resulted from the re-use of difficult-to-obtain Swedish steel plates during certain periods in which all information was not properly erased. This, of course, has also been suggested for the 5¢ on 6¢ S.Q. plate(s), so we may never know for sure. But whatever the cause, I do believe we have a foreign transfer here; quite possibly a 10¢ on 1¢ Numeral! Quite a Major discovery!!! As always, I would love to hear your opinions on this.
THE 10¢ on 1¢ NUMERAL FOUND ON THE PROOF SHEET IN OTTAWA by R. Trimble (Canadian Re-entry Study Group Newsletter #28 Jan.-Feb. 1987)
You will no doubt recall the reporting of the above stamp in three earlier issues of the Newsletter, Numbers 20, 27 & 28. The stamp next appeared in TOPICS in Sept.-Oct. 1987 in Dr. Warren Bosch's article, MISPLACED ENTRIES ON THE ONE CENT NUMERAL, p.28-31, Photo C. This was followed by my letter in TOPICS in March-April 1988, p.7, in which I further put forth the opinion that this is indeed a 10¢ entry on the 1¢ design, similar to the famed 5¢ on 6¢ Small Queen. The stamp next appeared in TOPICS in Sept.-Oct. 1988 in John Hillson's article, A REVIEW OF RE-ENTRY BASICS, p.44-45. In his article, Mr. Hillson stated "Photo C worries me." He went on to express concern about the "chamfered" corners of the outer edges of the misplaced design and near the end of his article he said, "I wonder if the ink of the variety has been checked for compatibility with the underlying stamp." Well, I am more than overjoyed to report that Mr. Hillson can put his mind to rest and need worry no more! This past August (1990), Bill Simpson and I made a pilgrimage to the Canadian Postal Archives in Ottawa to do some research on the 6¢ S.Q. material held by the Archives. While there, I was also able to examine all twelve proof sheets of the 1¢ Numeral, and there, in all its glory, on the black proof sheet of Plate 1, Right Pane, Position #82, was this stamp!!! What an incredible discovery! As to Mr. Hillson's concerns about the "chamfered" corners of the misplaced design, the issued stamps, perhaps being slightly worn, may give this impression. However, the crisp, clear black impression on the proof sheet does indeed show slight evidence of the vertical framelines, and in both corners, as well.In fact, the black proof impression is so clear that I do believe I can detect slight traces of the left 10. A further observation has to do with the dates of issue of the 1¢ and 10¢ stamps: Scott Canada Specialized gives the date of issue of the 1¢ as June 21, 1898 and the 10¢ as Nov. 5, 1898. For those of you who may ask how the design of the 10¢, which was not issued until over four months after the I¢, could possibly get on to the 1¢ plate, it is interesting to note that there is a hand-written notation on the proof sheet of Plate I that reads: Re-enter Dec.13, 98 followed by "Cancelled". This clarifies that the 10¢ transfer roll was indeed in existence at the time of the re-entering of the 1¢ Plate 1. Now, as to the questions of how and why the design of the 10¢ came to be partially impressed on the 1¢ plate is entirely another matter. Who knows??? But then we still do not know for certain how the design of the 5¢ Small Queen came to be on the 6¢ plate either. And yet another different 5¢ on 6¢ has surfaced! But that's another story. (See my web pages on the 5¢ on 6¢ S.Q. for this information.)
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