Canada FDC

The articles in this issue feature three (or five, depending on how they`re counted) cachet makers,
all of whom were most active during the 1950s.

John van der Ven has done a masterful job in tracking and presenting the Canadian
cachets that were produced in small numbers by Portland, OR maker William Linto. Unlike most
cachet makers, Linto kept precise records of his products and catalogued them on his cacheted
envelopes.

Our autumn issue of First Impressions features the work of six cachet makers, all but one of whom produced only a small number of FDCs. Nova Scotian Cyrus Miller produced small numbers of hand-painted cachets in the 1960s, while W.C. Thorne’s hand-drawn covers appeared in an earlier decade. Vancouver Island resident Angus McMillan produced a raft of patriotic cachets related to WW II but his only FDC cachet came after peace had been achieved.

The three main articles in this issue look at three different cachet makers, two of whom had a very limited output of FDCs. Jan Pieter van der Ven reviews a set of colourful cachets addressed to a Joyce Green in Australia circa 1970 while Bob Vogel presents cachets produced by Walter Howe for the Provincial Flowers and Coats of Arms series in the mid-1960s.

This issue contains three articles and several short notices, all of which cover a broad range of topics that you may find to be of interest. The articles deal with FDCs for stamp #CE4 in response to a request from the late Bob Markovits for information about them, with the cachets produced by Robert Cole for Fred Harford, and with five stamp issues in consecutive years that highlighted the work of three private cachet makers and the official versions produced by CPO.

We are fortunate in this issue to have extracts from presentations made by two of our members at recent meetings and exhibits. Some highlights of Andrew Chung’s collection of errors, freaks, and oddities from Canada Post FDCs are shown along with selected pages from Brainard Fitzgerald’s exhibit of FDCs for the 1937 King George VI coronation issue.

This issue contains two major articles. One is your editor’s effort to document all of the FDCs produced by the Fulton Stamp Company in the late 1940s and the other is an update by John van der Ven on his earlier study of the cachets made by Gordon Bazeley. As the latter article is by its nature a personal memoir, John asked that it be published “as written,” so that is what I’ve done.

The two feature articles in this issue explore the varieties to be found in the early Canada Post official FDCs and written exchanges between Montreal stamp dealer and FDC maker Joseph C. Rosenbaum and one or our honorary members Robert L. Markovits. Also from the Markovits archives are two Canada Post announcements pertaining to the 1935 Silver Jubilee issue. Also included are an unusual usage of an Eppstadt cacheted cover and a review of a book about U.S. cachet maker Dorothy Knapp’s hand-painted FDCs which included several Canadian stamp issues.

Our honorary member Robert L. Markovits recently forwarded to me some of his working papers from the 1969-1970 period when he was seeking pre-1940 first day and early use covers for Melvin Baron to include in his many articles. These papers are stopping over briefly with me en route to the American Philatelic Research Library so that I can publish some items that might be of interest to our members. The first of these, a letter and covers from Robert Cole, appears in this issue and other articles and exhibits will follow in subsequent issues.

The three articles in this issue include another round of cachets produced by T.G. Wolstencroft in the early 1970s and presented here by John Van der Ven. Gary Dickinson reviews cachets for the joint Canada-United States 1976 U.S. Bicentennial issue which highlighted Benjamin Franklin. In his extensive search for hitherto undiscovered cachets, Bob Vogel has encountered a substantial number of FDC miscues which are presented here and will be concluded in the next issue.

See the Covers page for links to all of the issues.

This issue features three articles including the fourth in a series about the cachets produced by Kelowna’s T.G. Wolstencroft. The number of known cachets by this hitherto unknown maker continues to expand, so John Van der Ven is attempting to keep us up to date. The efforts of the Windermere and District Historical Society to produce and distribute FDCs for the David Thompson issues of 1957 is chronicled by Gary Dickinson, and Bob Vogel reviews letter cards produced by the Folkard Company and used as FDCs.