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    • A Ship from History
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    • A Small Start Can Build a Grand Collection
    • Canada's prime Ministers series of 1951-1955
    • The Admiral Stamps of Canada
    • An Introduction to Canadian Machined Slogan Cancels
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    • Grenfell on Stamps of Newfoundland and Canada
    • Bluenose is Still Considered Canada’s Finest Stamp
    • The Open (or Shut) Case for Booklet Collecting
    • 1946 Stamps Show Canada’s Return to Peace
    • Issues of WWII: King, Country, and Conflict
    • The 1932 Medallions are Modern Classics
    • Canadian Stamps Marked Montreal Olympics
  • Postal Historians
    • Introduction
    • Canada’s ½¢ Small Queen had Multiple Uses
    • Covers Commemorated the Royal Visit of 1939
    • Some 19^th Century Mail That Took it on the Chin
    • Markings on Canadian Naval Mail of WWII
    • Crashes, Fires, and War Interrupted the Mail
    • Paquebot Covers: Mailed on the High Seas
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• EDUCATION SECTION MAP

The 1932 Medallions are Modern Classics
by John Burnett (ESC6)
Originally published in Linns Stamp News

According to my birth certificate, I was issued in 1941. I can tell you my children certainly consider me to be ancient, but I’m probably not yet a classic.

In the stamp hobby, stamps are considered to be classics when they are at least 100 years old, I’ve often wondered why this is.

With this article lets look at the stamps Canada issued in 1932: the Medallion Issue. At this writing the stamps are 75 years old, but I dare say you will still find them in dealers boxes marked “Modern Canada”.

The Medallion stamps Scott195 – 200, are singlr color engraved stamps, perforated gauge 11. The definitive sized stamps were printed in sheets of 400, that were divided into post office sheets of 100.

Figure 1 shows the six values in color. 1¢, 2¢, 3¢, 4¢, 5¢, and 8¢.

The stamps themselves bear the image of King George V and were issued near the end of his reign.

The Medallion issue has largely been ignored by Canadian stamp collectors, perhaps because the stamps are neither young nor old. I think this is a shame as they are good looking and in my estimate very collectible.

The Medallion issue also includes one commemorative sized 13¢ (Scott 201) stamp that was issued to pay the combination of 3¢ first class postage and 10¢ registration fee. The 13¢ stamp shown in figure 2, pictures the Quebec Citadel and was printed in what the post office called a dull violet color, but it sure doesn’t look dull to me.

Only a little more than 5 million 13¢ stamps were issued. This low quantity will make this stamp increasingly more difficult to find with time.

All Medallion sheet stamps are known to exist in imperforate pairs.

The 3¢ stamp was produced from two dies. Figure 3 shows the difference between the two die types as pictured in the Unitrade Specialized Catalogue of Canadian Stamps ,published by the Unitrade Press of Toronto, Ontario

The 1¢, 2¢, and 3¢ were also issued as coil stamps perforated gauge 8½ vertically.

The 3¢ die 2 stamp had the smallest print run of all the Medallions.. With only approximately only 1 million stamps released the die 2 can be difficult to find.

Generally dealers don’t differentiate the two die types. Those shopping for both types will have to use a magnifying glass when examining stamps at a show, dealer’s store, or those stamps sent on approval.

The design of the King george V stamps originates from an issue of six months earlier that commemorated the Imperial Economic Conference held in Ottawa.

The 1¢ George V stamp in the IEC set (Scott 192) was issued July 12, 1932 and became the basis for the Medallion Issue that was issued on December 1, 1932.

I think it would be appropriate for a collector to show a copy of this stamp as a forerunner to the medallion series.

In 1933 Canada issued booklets of the 1¢, 2¢, and 3¢ Medallion stamps. These booklets are numbered by Scott as BK20, 21, 22, and 23. The latter BK23 was a combination booklet with copies of the 1¢, 2¢, and 3¢ stamps in the book.

When developing a collection it is sometimes fun to include the postal history use of the stamp. Some of the rates met by the Medallion stamps are: 1¢ paid the domestic post card rate, 2¢ the domestic unsealed envelope rate (the Christmas card rate as it was known to most folks in those days) it also paid for an additional ounce on a first class letter. The 3¢ stamp paid the first class letter postage for the first ounce. Figure 4 illustrates a nice cover paying such a rate.

As mentioned earlier in this article the 13¢ stamp paid a combination rate of 3¢ first class postage and 10¢ registration fee. Figure 5 shows a nice use of this stamp to pay just those fees.

Mailed at Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island on December 1, 1932 this registered cover is further enhanced with RPO (railway post office) strikes on the back of the envelope. We will talk about RPO’s in a future article.

I was interested to find out other obscure rates that the Medallion stamps could pay and was amazed at the variety of uses I could start to look for.

Here are some of the easy rates to add to your collection to make approach complete. The items are in ascending order by denomination and are in addition to those more commonly found rates already mentioned above.

• 1¢: international surface printed matter rate at 1¢ per 2 ounces.
• 2¢: letters written in Braille and international post cards, I personally have never seen a letter written in Braille utilizing this rate, I bet it is scarce?
• 3¢: each additional ounce of an international surface letter, and international surface rate to the United States and to the British Commonwealth
• 4¢: Business reply cards
• 5¢: Parcel post up to 1 pound, this should be something you can find but I bet it will prove elusive! Money packet per ounce plus 10¢ registration fee
• 8¢: Parcel post up to 4 pounds, householder mailings per pound (letters sent to all householders within a defined delivery area, generally not addressed beyond “householder”), international air mail per half ounce and per ounce to the United States.
• 13¢: as a make up stamp on parcels and additional ounces on international airmail, including the United States.

Getting examples of covers with Medallion stamps showing all these various rates, and the combinations of the stamps to make some of these rates, would add up to quiet a number of covers.

In setting out to put together a fairly complete collection of the Medallion stamps I think most collectors would want to obtain plate blocks and booklets. None of these items are particularly expensive, and they would greatly enhance a collection of the stamps.