"I venture to think the modest disclaimer on the part of Mr. Brouse, in his closing sentence, is hardly borne out in view of the interesting communication he has made. To me the information was certainly novel, and I could hardly credit that there should exist such differences in size until I had verified the fact by examination of specimens. Owing to the kindness of Messrs. Stanley Gibbons, Limited, and Mr. W. H. Peckitt, I was enabled to inspect a number of these pence issues, and I have tabulated the measurements as nearly as I can:—
| HALFPENNY. | |
| Size. | Paper. |
|---|---|
| (a) 22 × 18½ mm. | Medium thick |
| (b) 22½ × 18 mm. | Medium thick |
| THREEPENCE. | |
| (a) 22 (full) × 18 mm. | Very thin wove |
| (a) 22 × 18mm. | Very thin laid |
| (b) 22½ × 17½ mm. | Thin |
| (c) 22¾ × 17½ mm. | Thick |
| SIXPENCE. | |
| (a) 22 × 18 mm. | Thin wove |
| (a) 22 × 18 mm. | Thin Laid |
| (b) 22¾ × 17¾ mm. | Thick |
| SEVENPENCE-HALFPENNY. | |
| (a) 22¼ × 18½ mm. (bare) | Med. thick |
| (a) 22½ × 18½ mm. | Medium thick |
| (a) 22¾ × 18 mm. | Medium thick |
| (a) 22¾ × 18½ mm. | Medium thick |
| TENPENCE. | |
| (a) 22¾ × 17½ mm. | Thin to very thin |
| (b) 22½ × 18 mm. (full) | Thick |
| (b) 22¾ × 18½ mm. (bare) | Thick |
| (c) 22 × 18 mm. | Thin |
"The varieties of the Tenpence are those described by Mr. Brouse as (a) long and narrow, (b) long and broad, and (c) short and broad. I may add that in the case of this value I have examined and measured some forty copies, including a strip of three, as also a proof on very thin India paper, which corresponds exactly in measurement with variety (b) on the thick paper (22¾ × 18½mm.). It is obvious that to be absolutely accurate beyond a half mm. with an ordinary gauge is hardly possible, but in several of the given cases I have averaged the sizes of several that very closely approximated.
"As will be seen, I have gone somewhat beyond the lines of Mr. Brouse's paper in including the ½d., the 3d., and 6d., the variation in the former being slight, but in the two latter noteworthy. The question how these varieties have arisen is an interesting one, nor can I see that they can be accounted for by shrinkage of the paper, as in the case of the 10d. proof above cited, which is on all fours with the ordinary stamp on thick paper. In the case of the strip of this value I found all three stamps measured the same, and the fact remains that variety (c) is short and broad. In any case the existence of these varieties is palpable, the question of their origin a genuine philatelic problem, and I think that the thanks of us all are therefore due to Mr. Brouse for his interesting paper."
This may have been the first record of the peculiarity in the case of the Canadian stamps, but it was at least not the first time that variation in the dimensions of certain line engraved stamps, supposed to have been produced from the same original die, had been noted and discussed. We refer to the case of the early Ceylon stamps, which furnished food for contention in the philatelic press for many years. The first mention of a difference in the length of these seems to have been in December, 1864.[39] Ten years later the reference list of Ceylon prepared by the London Philatelic Society[40] noted the fact that the stamps of 1863 on unwatermarked paper were in general about a millimeter shorter in the vertical dimension than the succeeding issue on paper watermarked Crown C C, although the engraved designs were otherwise absolutely identical. Major Edw. B. Evans, in his catalogue,[41] appends a note on the unwatermarked stamps of 1863 as follows:—
These stamps are apparently (indeed, we may say certainly) from the same plates as the other issues, but at the same time the impressions on this paper are about 1-16 inch shorter than those on other papers. This can only have been occasioned by the paper having shrunk to some extent since the stamps were printed....
Later, in 1887, Mr. T. K. Tapling, writing in Le Timbre-Poste,[42] claims the difference cannot be due to shrinkage of paper because the stamps have all shrunk evenly, and attributes it to some defect in the process of making the plates. He reasons thus:—
Les timbres sur les feuilles de n'importe quelle valeur étaient tous identiques comme type. Ils furent gravés sur acier, je pense par MM. Perkins Bacon et Co., chaque timbre par un procédé de réduplication, étant reproduit d'une matrice; la planche étant ensuite durcie pour l'impression. Il n'y a par conséquent pas de variété de types, les lignes des gravures sur les timbres courts étant les mêmes que celles sur les timbres longs, excepté qu'elles sont un tant soit peu contractées.... Il me semble plus que probable que la différence en longeur des exemplaires puisse être attribuée à un léger défaut dans le procédé de réduplication des planches de la matrice originale.
As a matter of fact the stamps did not shrink evenly, but very unevenly. Mr. W. B. Thornhill, writing on these same stamps in 1889,[43] says:—"You can hardly find two stamps of exactly the same measurements in the same value, though the difference in many cases is too small to signify"; and he proceeds to show the extreme variations in a carefully prepared table including every value on every variety of paper for issues from 1855 to 1867. The greatest variation in the vertical dimension seems to be about 1 mm. in 26 mm., or roughly 4%, and in the horizontal dimension about ¼ to ½ mm. in 19 mm. or roughly 1¼ to 2½%. These dimensional differences being so palpably existent, therefore, what factors are we to consider in looking for their cause? There seem to be but three: first, an original die or matrix for each different size; second, one original die only, whose impressions on the printing plate show variations resulting from the process of transferring them; third, a printing plate with all the impressions exact duplicates of the one original die, but whose reproductions in ink on dampened paper are varied by the shrinkage of the paper in drying.