The above table shows that the first deliveries of the ½ cent were sufficient to last until 1872; from that time there were yearly deliveries approximating a half million up to the issue of the miniature ½ cent in 1882. The figures for that year doubtless included a large quantity of this latter stamp, so we can safely approximate the quantity of the ½ cent of 1868 issued as 6½ millions. The large 1 cent stamp was superseded about March 1870,
so the above figures may very likely be reduced by say two millions in 1870, leaving 11½ millions of the large stamps, but in both brown-red and yellow. A large part of the 1868-9 deliveries must have been of the brown-red stamp, however, as the yellow one did not appear until January 1869, and from the catalog prices the former would seem to be twice as common as the latter. The large 3 cent was also superseded about January 1870, so that a considerable portion of the deliveries of 1869-70 were doubtless due its successor. Some 20 millions or more can without doubt be credited to the 1868 stamp, nevertheless.
The 2 cent and 6 cent were both superseded early in 1872, so their totals can be reduced probably to approximately 10-11 millions for the former and perhaps 10 millions of the latter.
With the 12½ and 15 cent stamps we find no successors, but we do find that none of the former was delivered after 1871, so that our total of 2½ millions is correct, barring our first approximation. From the lists of "Issues to Postmasters" it is evident that the stamp was regularly used, but in decreasing quantities, down to 1888, when the last figures "1100" appear. A summing up of these issues to postmasters (again allowing for the first approximation) gives us a total of 1,944,100 issued; but of these there were 44,086 returned by the postmasters as unfit for use, the last return (84 copies) being received in 1893. The result for the 12½ cent stamp is therefore approximately 1,900,000 issued and used, and some 634,000 probably destroyed.
The 15 cent stamp, after the amount received in the 1869 account, needed no further supplies until the 1875 account, although it was issued to postmasters each year. The changes in rates in 1875 made it again useful as a multiple of the 5 cent stamp and in connection with registration. From that time until 1893 it was regularly printed and delivered, but this was evidently the end of its usefulness, as the only receipt thereafter was of 400 in 1896—undoubtedly a small remainder which the engravers wanted to get rid of. It was regularly issued to postmasters, however, up to 1900, the last amount, 21,350 appearing in that year's accounts, though 70 copies were turned in for destruction in 1901. Some 31,000 all told were returned as unfit for use, but the rest were probably all used in the course of business.
Of the large 5 cent stamp we can only judge as with the preceding. The Report for 1876 includes the deliveries of both large and small stamps, the total being 2 millions. As succeeding deliveries of the small stamp averaged
a million or more for several years thereafter, it is highly probable that the above total was evenly divided and that the large 5 cent was at least printed to the number of a million copies.
Turning now to the Postmaster General's Reports for the several years during which the large sized stamps were the general issue, we find in the First Report of the Dominion of Canada, for the Year ending 30th June, 1868, the following remarks concerning the new order:—
The Post Office Laws and Regulations of the several Provinces of the Dominion, in force at the date of the Union, remained in operation under the authority of the Union Act until superseded by the statute known as "The Post Office Act 1867", passed in the first session of the Dominion Parliament, for the regulation of the Postal Service, and which general Act took effect from the 1st. April, 1868.