Canadian Stamp Auctions

Commentary No. 105 - 17 March, 2008

Scott 44 – The Beautiful 8¢ Small Queen

They say that beauty lies in the eye of the beholder and, to us, the 8¢ Small Queen is elegant, captivating and decidedly beautiful. According to Boggs, three new denominations were added to the Small Queen set in 1893; the 8¢ for postage plus registration and the 20¢ and 50¢ for parcels. In his book, the Small Queens of Canada, John Hillson states “the 8¢ value is the same size as the usual Small Queens, but the Queen’s profile faces to the left instead of to the right. It comes in a wide variety of shades ranging from Pale Blue-Gray through Slate to Slate-Purple and Violet-Black. These are equally common, but there is one scare shade in Greenish-Blue.” The recent copy that sold in the Spink Shreve’s sale in New York epitomizes for us the attractions of this stamp: Spink Shreves Feb. 28, 2008 Lot 966 Colour Varieties The stamp comes in four basic colours with examples provided below. These examples come from auction catalogues which are not consistent in how they reproduce their colours so that if you find that each of the following examples is not exactly the same as its neighbor, please keep this in mind. Scott 44 - Violet black Eastern Nov. 4 2006 Lot 434 Shreves Oct. 27 2006 Lot 1106 Eastern Jan. 25 2006 Lot 890 Scott 44a - Blue gray Maresch Sept. 28 1999 Lot 1788 Shreves Sept. 30 2006 Lot 750 Bow City Jul. 18 2001 Lot 1992 Scott 44b – Slate Maresch Jun. 29 2004 Lot 2196 Shreves Feb. 21 2007 Lot 1624 Maresch Mar. 2 2004 Lot 2036   Scott 44c – Gray Maresch Jun. 23 1998 Lot 1502 Maresch Jun. 23 1998 Lot 1503 Maresch Jan. 18 2000 Lot 1389 There is no clear answer as to why these colour variations exist. They may have been produced at different locations or the paint mixer may not have paid a whole lot of attention to the consistency of his colours. Both Holmes and Jarrett describe the various colours in ways that are not consistent. They agree that the first 8¢ was issued in August, 1893 and it then seems that every two years or so a new colour would appear. Besides the above colours, Jarrett refers to a very rare variety which he calls a greenish slate. We have not seen any examples of this colour. Imperforates Imperforate stamps were issued in only two of the above colours: Blue Gray With Gum (1895) Scott 44d Shreves Sept. 30,2006 Lot 751 Violet Black No Gum (1897) Unitrade 44i Maresch Mar. 19, 1996 Lot 283   Jumbos On occasion, the perforation equipment which had so much trouble producing a well centered copy of the stamps in those days, would go overboard and produce a jumbo: Maresch Apr. 1, 2001 Lot 381 Multiples We have recorded only a few multiples of the stamp, mostly blocks of four. This block of eight, which appeared in a Shreve’s sale in 2006, is the largest of which we are aware:   Shreves Sept. 30 2006 Lot 749 We hope you have enjoyed this review of the above examples of this beautiful stamp. It took a lot of digging to find them, which impressed on us just how rare they are.