The American Bank Note Co. and Rawdon, Wright, Hatch and Edson, their predecessors, have never, according to official information from them, employed any other gauge than 12, in fact they call 12 their standard and only perforation. Allowing that they did perforate the ones found perf. 12 (which are the rule, while those perf. 14 are the exception), then those perf. 14 must have been certainly operated upon elsewhere than in the shops of the Bank Note Co., where this perforation is unknown.
From all the foregoing we can seem to make but one deduction for the 3d. perforated 14 and that is—unofficial. The dated cover, if 1859, would be but a month before the issue of the decimal stamps, and the regular "perf. 12" stamps were plentifully supplied at that time. It would therefore seem that the date must have been 1857, as suggested, which would have been well ahead of the appearance of the "perf. 12" issues as we shall see later. Then the fact that the manufacturers cannot be held responsible for this perforation, and the Department accounts furnish no item of expenditure directly traceable to such work, make it seem wholly probable that it was done by private parties for their own or customers' convenience.
The "curious perforation" alluded to as just discovered was announced by the Scott Stamp & Coin Co. as follows:[64]—
Canada.—In a large lot of pence issues purchased by us lately, we have found two copies of 3 pence on grayish wove paper perforated 13 with oblique parallel cuts. This seems to confirm the theory that the pence issues of Canada were not perforated by the manufacturers, but either by the Canadian Government or by some persons authorized by them, who most likely experimented with different perforating machines, finally selecting the one perforating 12.
With regard to the deductions given, we think that what we have already presented concerning the unofficial character of the gauge 14 perforation applies with even more force in the present instance, and we unhesitatingly put these two curios in the "privately perforated" class.
Messrs. Corwin and King give further details as follows:[65]—
As one of them has passed into the possession of the writer, we are able to particularize somewhat with reference to this particular perforation.... Our specimen is from the bottom of the sheet, or else the shears have been used, so that we find the perforation as it originally existed between each stamp, before separation. This perforation consists of oblique curved parallel cuts; they are not straight, but show a very decided curve from right to left, looking at the face of the stamp. The other sides of our specimen present, having been torn from the stamp on either side, a very well defined saw-tooth perforation, very much like that found on the Bremen stamps, but much coarser, clearly gauging 13. It occurs to us that, perhaps, this is the 13 perforation listed by the London Society, although, had a specimen been before the society when the reference list was compiled, the peculiarity of this style of perforation would surely have been noted by them.
To return to the general subject, Mr. Donald A. King in his own article says:[66]—
It is an open question whether these stamps were delivered to the Canadian Post Office Department in a perforated condition or not. The manufacturers are wholly unable to throw any light on the subject; and while there is much to be said in favor of their having perforated the stamps, there are points against it almost as strong. In favor of it there is the fact that, at the date that these stamps were issued, it was more than probable that a firm like the manufacturers would have perforating machines. The normal gauge of the perforated set is 12, that being the only size of perforation ever used by the manufacturers, or their successors, the American Bank Note Company; indeed, they call 12 their standard and only gauge.
The stamps in issue from the time of the announcement of perforation in the Report of 1857, to the appearance of the decimal stamps in 1859, were the ½d., 3d., 6d., 7½d., and 10d. values, but only the first three appeared with perforations. The first supply of the 10d. stamp, as we know, was received in January 1855, and was naturally unperforated. The first and