Canada: Its Postage Stamps and Postal Stationery

by Clifton A. Howes

Department Circular.
POST OFFICE DEPARTMENT, CANADA,
OTTAWA, 1st July, 1899.

Owing to the reduction in the Domestic letter rate of postage, the issue of the 3 c. letter-card, the 3c. stamped envelope and the 3 cent postage stamp from the Department has ceased. Any unused 3c. letter-cards, 3c. stamped envelopes or 3c. stamps, still extant, will, however, continue available for postage purposes, or may be exchanged at any Post Office, at their full face value, for postage stamps of other denominations.

The color of the Domestic-rate postage stamp, as prescribed by the Universal Postal Union, is red, and it is intended to discontinue the issue of the ordinary two cents purple colored stamps as soon as the present supply on hand is exhausted. This will be about the 20th July, 1899. Thereafter the Department will issue two cents stamps in red,

first, however, surcharging down to two cents the unissued remnant of the three cents stamps in red, now in the possession of the Department, and as soon as the supply of such surcharged threes is exhausted, the issue of two cents stamps in red will begin. The surcharged stamps will be issued to Postmasters as 2c. postage stamps and be recognized as postage stamps of that denomination.

Postmasters are requested to exchange, as above mentioned, all unused 3c. letter-cards, 3c. stamped envelopes and 3c. stamps which may be offered them to be exchanged for other postage stamps of an equal value.

Postmasters, who as a result of such exchange, may find the 3c. stamps, etc., unsaleable, are at liberty, in the case of an Accounting Post Office, to send them direct to the Department for credit; and in the case of a Non-Accounting Post Office, to send them to the City Post Office from which it obtains its supplies, asking in lieu of those returned other stamps to an equal value.

It is especially requested that, in the case of stamps sent direct to the Department, under this authority, that is to say, by Accounting Post Offices,—Postmasters will be so good as to carry out the following instructions:—

(1) Each transmission should be registered, and accompanied with a brief memorandum, plainly stamped with the date stamp of the Post Office, and indicating the number and value of the 3c. stamps, etc., claimed to be enclosed. If other stamps are required to replace those returned, a separate requisition therefor (not enclosed in the package) should be sent direct to the Department in the usual way.

(2) Single stamps, and stamps that are not in complete sheets, should be pasted on alternate pages of separate sheets of paper, with not more than one hundred stamps on each page. Any stamps that have stuck together whilst in the possession of the Postmaster, must be taken apart (which can easily be done by immersing them for a few minutes in water) and then pasted on sheets of paper as above directed.

Postmasters of Non-Accounting Offices are particularly asked to bear in mind that any 3c. letter-cards, 3c. stamped envelopes or 3c. postage stamps which conformably to this instruction, they may receive from the public in exchange for other stamps and find unsaleable, must be returned, as above directed, to the City Post Offices from which they respectively obtain their supplies, and not to the Department.