All of Canada’s earliest stamps were imperforate. They were issued in sheets and it was up to the postal clerks to separate them individually with scissors. What a great leap forward it was when, in 1858, perforations were added as a convenience to postal employees and the general public.

Ten years later, the Large Queen set made its appearance. Here are a few stamps from the set, perf. 12 as usual:

Before this new set was issued, the Post Office prepared essays and proofs as was the usual custom. But for reasons that were never clear, it seems that a small number of the stamps were prepared in imperforate form with the same colour and paper. Very few have survived.

While details of the imperforates of the “Cents” set of 1858 are clearly known and documented, such as not the case with the Large Queen set. The Scott and Unitrade catalogues refer to the 5¢, 12½¢ and 15¢ stamps as being imperforate. However there is only one known 5¢ imperforate pair and we have never seen a 12¢ imperforate pair. Copies of the 15¢ imperforate appear regularly at auction.

On rare occasions over the years, we have also seen 1¢ and 3¢ single imperforate stamps offered for sale at auction. However these have not been listed in the catalogues.

1¢ Large Queen

This is the one imperforate in the Large Queen set we know the least about. The above copy appeared in an Eastern Auction sale on June 11, 1988 with the following description:

”1¢ Yellow imperforate used single, tied to small piece by Toronto CDS, F-VF”

Other references to the 1¢ Large Queen imperforate exist. Hans Reiche’s 1977 “A Large Queen’s Report” comments on the 1¢ stamp, stating “Imperforate copies have been reported”. Boggs’ “The Postage Stamps and Postal History of Canada” refers at p. 262 to an imperforate pair of the 1¢ stamp. This is the only reference we have seen to the existence of a pair. Howe’s also refers to the 1¢ imperforate, stating that it is only known in used condition.

3¢ Large Queen

Between 1977 and 1995, the above stamp was sold at auction three times by R. Maresch & Son. At the most recent sale, it was accompanied by the following comments by Bill Maresch:

“The imperforate single copy on wove paper with horiz. grain, huge margins all around which does not permit it to be a trimmed copy ( I have measured this against jumbo copies now and when they came up for sale long ago) in my opinion this is a genuine imperforate single, and the only recorded copy ( but sold as is due to the fact that it is a single copy), very fine, ex Lussey.”

There is a reference to the 3¢ Large Queen in imperforate form in Hans Reich’s Report. It simply confirms the fact that a copy of the stamp in imperforate form was sold at a Maresch sale.

5¢ Large Queen

“Original size”

“Trimmed size”

The earliest image of the 5¢ Large Queen imperforate pair we are aware of appeared as an illustration in Boggs “The Postage Stamps and Postal History of Canada”, published in 1945.

The pair surfaced again in New York in 1970 when the Dale Lichtenstein collection was put up for auction by H. R. Harmer Inc. It was described as follows:

“5¢ olive green, imperforate, horizontal pair, unused, faint crease between stamps and pin hole at left. A great showpiece”

At that time it was in its “original size” as shown above. No estimated value was provided and it sold for $600 US.

In 1975 it appeared in a J.N.Sissons Inc. auction in Toronto where it sold for $2,900. By this time, a very small section of the lower left corner of the stamp had been cut off for reasons explained below. The size of this slightly reduced version of the stamp is referred to as the “trimmed size” as illustrated above

In October, 1983 we had correspondence with Dr. Smith and provide the following excerpts from his letter:

Dear Mr. Burpee

I am happy to send you some additional information about the imperforate pair of the 5¢ Large Queen. This pair has no gum. I bought it at the Sissons sale in 1975, at which time I was assured by Jim Sissons and other dealers, that as far as they knew, this pair is unique.

Enclosed is a photo of the way this imperforate pair looks today, as well as a copy of the picture of it in Boggs’ “The Postage Stamps and Postal History of Canada,” page 247. The lower left hand corner has been trimmed since Boggs’ day, to remove a small pinhole from the margin, but otherwise looks the same.

Sincerely

Julian C. Smith

In 1986, R.Maresch & Son put the outstanding Canadian collection of Dr. Julian Smith up for auction. It contained the “trimmed version” of the 5¢ pair. An estimate of $2,500 was provided and the pair sold for $5,750. There have been no sales of the pair since then that we are aware of. However in February 1995 a single imperforate copy appeared in an Ian Kimmerly auction where it sold for $650

Scott catalogue listed the 5¢ imperforate for the first time in 1999 but did not show a value. It added a catalogue value of $11,000 in 2000 and has not changed it since. We find it interesting that the value is only $11,000 for a pair of stamps for which there is only one known copy, while the Scott value for the 2¢ Large Queen on laid paper, of which there are 2 copies in existence, is $175,000. Why is this odd? Because neither stamp has sold at auction for the past few decades, there are only one or two copies in existence and yet the values are miles apart. This is not a criticism; it must be very difficult to value stamps that seldom if ever enter the market.

12½¢ Large Queen

“Mock–up image”

Scott lists two varieties of the 12½¢ Large Queen. The first, Scott 28c is imperforate vertically, the second, Scott 28d, is imperforate horizontally. The above mock-up image is taken from material issued by The Saskatoon Stamp Center in 1987. John Jamieson, the President of the company, wrote at that time:

“I have seen the 12½¢ Large Queen Imperf. Horizontally variety --- it does exist and is in a used vertical strip of five. This piece was offered at Capex 1978 by an English dealer, at a very substantial sum…. I would dearly love to hear from anyone who has any information…”.

As far as we can tell, no copies of either stamp have ever sold at auction. We realize this is quite a stretch, because we only began to follow auctions in 1973 and collecting Large Queens began over 100 years before that. In his Report, Hans Reiche provides the following comments regarding the 12½¢ stamp:

“Imperforated horizontally or vertically, are not common. A strip of six imperforated horizontally was found ten years ago in England and exhibited at SIPEX, Washington 1966”.

The Encyclopedia of British Empire Postage Stamps, Vol. V, 1973, states at page 289:“Imperf. Horizontally: 12½¢, strip of five, used from Halifax, N.S., very rare”

Neither Scott nor Unitrade provide an image of the stamps although both list them. Unitrade notes that the 12½¢ imperforate vertically may not exist. If anyone has any information (and we mean any!) on these 12½¢ Large Queen imperforates, please let us know. Click on the “Please Contact Us” tab on our website and you can send us your message by email.

15¢ Large Queen

The 15¢ Large Queen imperforate is relatively common. Unlike the 5¢ and the 12½¢, it appears fairly regularly at auction. Demand for it is modest. The colour is the regular colour of issue, i.e. brownish purple. It almost always comes with gum. An article in the July 1995 edition of BNA Topics by S. J. Menich, page 40, described the gum as;

”bright, sticky looking, yellowish. Appearance of a typically hand-gummed operation, done with a brush”.

We have recorded 2 varieties of the 15¢ imperforate – there is an UR corner block with the “Pawnbroker” variety that is ex-Dale Lichtenstein and there is a “cracked plate” variety that appeared in Maresch sales in 1985 and 1987.

Conclusion

This is certainly a very curious mixture. A single 1¢, a single 3¢, a single and pair of the 5¢, little evidence of either 12½¢ varieties and a fair quantity of the 15¢ which is the only one that appears regularly at auction.

When Holmes, Jarrett and Boggs wrote their well known books on the stamps of Canada in 1911, 1929 and 1945 respectively, the only imperforate Large Queens they referred to were the 1¢ and 15¢ stamps. It seems that little knowledge of these imperforates from the Large Queens set existed in the past. Most of the knowledge has only appeared in the more recent 30 years. It has taken a long time for the story to come out and our feeling is that much remains to be discovered.