An Act to regulate the Currency. [Assented to 14th June, 1853.]
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II. And be it enacted, That the denominations of money in the Currency of this Province, shall be pounds, dollars, shillings, pence, cents and mills: the pound, shilling and penny shall have, respectively, the same proportionate values as they now have, the dollar shall be one-fourth of a pound, the cent shall be one-hundredth of a dollar, and the mill one-tenth of a cent....
III. And be it enacted, That the Pound Currency shall be held to be equivalent to and to represent one hundred and one grains and three hundred and twenty-one thousandths of a grain Troy weight of Gold of the Standard of fineness now prescribed by Law for the Gold Coins of the United Kingdom; and the Dollar Currency shall be held to be equivalent to and to represent one fourth part of the weight aforesaid of Gold of the said Standard....
IV. And be it enacted, That the Pound Sterling shall be held to be equal to one pound, four shillings and four pence, or four dollars, eighty-six cents and two-thirds of a cent, Currency....
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IX. And be it enacted, That ... the Gold Eagle of the United States, coined after [1st. July, 1834], ... and weighing ten penny weights, eighteen grains, Troy weight, shall pass current and be a legal tender in this Province for ten Dollars or two pounds ten shillings currency....
Further supplies of the 10d. stamp were not needed for three years, the next lot, numbering 72,120, having been delivered during the year ending 30th Sept., 1858, according to the table of stamp statistics. These two lots were the only ones delivered, and the balance on hand when the decimal stamps appeared being 31,200, we find a total issue for the 10d. stamp of 141,000.
Puzzling questions seem to be the rule with this first series of Canadian stamps, and the 10d. is no exception. The stamp occurs, to all appearances, in at least two sizes, one of which has been termed the "wide oval" and the other the "narrow oval." These are well brought out by illustrations Nos. 70 (wide) and 71 (narrow) on [Plate IV]. Very likely the peculiarity was noticed much earlier, but it seems to have been brought to the attention of collectors generally for the first time by Mr. W. H. Brouse, in a paper read before the London Philatelic Society on Feb. 3, 1894.[38] We quote this entire:—