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It seems that the American Bank Note Co., upon taking the contract for supplying the Canadian stamps in 1897, asked to be excused from printing the stamped envelopes as well, because such a small number were used. This work was therefore given to the Government Printing Bureau at Ottawa,[214] which accounts for the dies having been furnished by Messrs. De La Rue & Co. The stamp accounts give the number of 3 cent envelopes furnished in the new type as 110,000 in 1898 and 70,000 in 1899, a total of 180,000; but the reduction of the domestic letter rate from 3 cents to 2 cents on the 1st January, 1899, made the 3 cent envelope useless, and large quantities were surcharged with the new rate, so that it is impossible to tell what proportion of the amount given is now represented by each variety. If catalog pricing is any criterion, the unsurcharged issue of the envelope should be perhaps 80,000.
The Report for 1899 states:—
As a result of the reduction in the Domestic Letter rate of postage, the issue of the 3c. letter card, 3c. stamped envelope and 3c. postage stamp has been discontinued, unused quantities of these, however, continuing available for postage purposes, or exchangeable at any post office for their equivalent in postage stamps of other denominations.
The Report does not give the date of issue of the 3 cent stamped envelope, but it was chronicled in Mekeel's Weekly Stamp News for May 5, 1898, and
therefore was probably issued sometime in April. The date of discontinuance is given, however, as December, 1898, so that it had a life, unsurcharged, of only about nine months.
But meanwhile the 1 cent envelope was being prepared, and evidently because of the dissatisfaction expressed over the embossed head of the Queen on the 3 cent value, the new envelope appeared with the familiar youthful profile similar to that used on the British envelope dies for so many years. This improved the appearance of the stamp, which otherwise corresponded in design with the 3 cent and was likewise engraved by Messrs. De La Rue & Co. It was printed in a dark green on paper like that of the 3 cent value, and in the same size and cut of envelope. The new type was issued on July 22, 1898, according to the 1899 Report, and was sold at $1.20 per hundred. The distribution of the old style 1 cent envelopes was discontinued in the same month, according to the stamp accounts.
Following the 1 cent envelope came the 2 cent, being identical in every respect save the expressed value and color, and emanating from the same source as its two predecessors. The Report of 1899 gives the date of issue of this envelope as the 2nd January, 1899, and, as the corresponding value in the adhesive set was a deep violet, we should expect the envelope stamp to follow suit. This it did, but was almost immediately followed by an issue in bright red, because of the reduction of the domestic letter rate from 3 cents to 2 cents. It will be remembered that when Imperial Penny Postage was inaugurated on December 25, 1898, it was almost immediately announced that the internal postage in Canada would be reduced to the 2 cent rate on and from the 1st January, 1899. As the Postal Union requirements called for carmine as the color of the stamp for the domestic letter rate, the change from violet was necessary in the Canadian 2 cent stamp, but owing to the large stock of the violet stamps on hand and the surcharging of the 3 cent stamps down to 2 cent value, the change in color from violet to carmine did not take place in the adhesives for some eight months. Not so with the envelopes; the new 2 cent ones were about to be issued and had been printed to the amount of 10,000 in dark violet. But with the change in rates and therefore in color requirements, orders were given to print further supplies of the 2 cent envelope in red, and the latter color therefore appeared about a week after the violet stamp.