Ottawa, 17th Feb'y, 1899.
Our weekly sensation was duly on tap last week, in the shape of surcharges, Canada's first offence, but an aggravated case. The Post Office Department announced that any holders of 3c. envelopes or letter cards might send them in to the postage stamp branch, and have them surcharged, and re-issued as 2c. emissions, the difference in value being
made good by an additional supply of surcharged stationery or in some other equivalent stamps.
It was not anticipated that a very large supply of 3c. stationery was on hand, and consequently the arrangements for surcharging are of the most primitive description. Stamps of soft rubber bearing the figures 2c. are provided, and the surcharge is put on by hand, the stamps being inked on black pads. The consequence is that the work is ill done, and we have as many varieties of surcharge as there are impressions, with quantities[217] of ink varying from a black blue to a light grey. I have seen one envelope with the surcharge on sidewise reading from bottom to top.
Independently of the variations in printing, there are two types of surcharge. In the first, which I shall christen the "capital surcharge", the figure 2 is 10½ mm. high by 8 wide, the heavy parts of the figure being 2 mm. thick, the thin parts ¾ mm. The C is a capital letter 4½ × 3½ mm. There was only one stamp of this type, and when it had been in use for two or three days the difference in type was noticed and the stamp was destroyed. Any stationery surcharged with it will be exceedingly rare.
The other type, which I suggest should be called the "lower case surcharge", has a similar figure 2 but the C is a heavy face lower case letter 4 × 3½ mm. It is possible that there may be varieties of this type, as there are several stamps in use, but the printing is so badly done, and the stamps so subject to distortion by pressure, that one cannot depend on either inspection or measurement, a change in pressure in printing altering the appearance of the surcharge very materially.
In the same issue of the Era appeared further notes from another correspondent. In regard to the then current 3 cent envelopes (the so-called "Bureau print") he says:—"The P. O. Department has surcharged the stock on hand, a few thousand. * * * Some of the old British American Bank Note 3c envelopes were also surcharged, but it is understood that there were very few of them on hand,—less than a thousand."
The opportunity given the public, however, to have 3 cent envelopes in their possession surcharged, as well as the stock held by postmasters, which was returned to a considerable extent (15,848 of the 3c. 1898 returned 1899-1901; 6,788 of the 3c. No. 1, 1877, returned 1899-1900; and 3,081 of the 3c. No. 2, 1877, returned 1899) and doubtless reissued in surcharged condition, has made these provisional envelopes fairly common. No details of the numbers so treated are available, but if the catalogue value is any criterion the 3 cent of 1898 surcharged is half again as common as the unsurcharged
variety, or, as before remarked, the numbers issued may be divided up roughly as perhaps 100,000 of the former to 80,000 of the latter. Of the old envelopes of 1877, both sizes of which are found surcharged, it is impossible to hazard any guesses, save that a considerable number—several thousands of each size at least—must have been operated upon to render them as reasonable in catalogue price as we find them.