International Blue-per #3: Canada 1897 Jubilee Issue

"Blue-pers" is my silly name for mistakes, errors, inconsistencies, etc. in the Scott Volume 1. My first two examples represented two categories: 1) what I can only assume was a practical joke at the expense (pun intended) of collectors; and 2) an orphan--i.e., a stamp that was in the Scott Catalog when the album was originally compiled but has been delisted. I suspect that this second category will account for most Blue-pers. But with the Canada 1897 Jubilee Issue, we have an example of a mistake by the editors.

At some point after the 1955 Blue ("Thanks John for this info") but no later than the 1969 edition, Scott revised the first page for Canada. In doing so, the editors left two spaces for the 1897 Jubilee Issue, one illustrated with a cut for the 1/2c black (Scott 50) and the other a blank. The problem is that on the next page for Canada are eight spaces for the exact same series, this time with illustrations for Scott 50, 51, 52, 53, and 54 plus 3 blank spaces for the higher values.


What probably motivated the remodeling of the front page was to remove a space for what had been Scott 35, the 2c blue green Small Queen. In later catalogs this color been demoted to a minor listing as Scott 36d. In the photo, 36 is on the left, 36d the right. Here's a link to a very informative website on the Small Queens.



You have to wonder whether no one brought this duplication of the Jubilees to Scott's attention over the past 50 years? Their editors have been rearranging other pages and surely could have corrected this Blue-per with little effort.

So what's a stamp collector to do? You can't have a complete volume 1 if you have blank spaces, no matter how legitimate the reason! So do you duplicate two of the stamps on both pages? Put the first two stamps from the set (the 1/2c black and 1c orange) on page 1 and 8 of the remaining stamps on page 2? Put something on page 1 to cover up the two erroneous spaces? A major factor is that the 1/2c is not a cheap stamp as you might expect--in 2007 it cataloged $100. And the higher values of the Jubilees are even more pricey.

I guess we should be grateful that, as far as I know, Volume 1 doesn't have the problem that occurs in one or more of the later Blue Internationals of spaces for stamps that were announced but never issued.