Canada #162, 163, 163b, 164, 1930-1931 King George V Arch / Leaf Issue, 5 FOG Singles

5 FOG singles of the from the 1930-1931 King George V Arch / Leaf Issue . Includes:
162 1c orange, striated cream gum, 4 gum breaker ridges
163 1c dull myrle green, die 2
163b 1c die 2 striated cream gum, 4 breaker ridges
164 2c deep bright green & dull green

Unitrade values this at $7.35. The stamp offered here grades 70 as follows:

Centering/Margins: 40/70

Paper Freshness: 5/5

Colour: 5/5

Impression: 5/5

Absence of Visible Paper Flaws: 5/5

Perforations: 10/10

There are many points of interest for specialists on this issue which are not alluded to in Unitrade, chief among them being the precancels and perfins that can be collected on the stamps, many of which are quite scarce in fine or better condition. Turning to the stamps themselves, all of the values exist with variations in the shades, some of which are highly outstanding. The gums show a ton of variation on both the rotary and flat plate printings. The gum on the rotary printings shows both visible striations, in the form of darker coloured lines and not, while the number of gum breaker ridges (those horizontal ridges added to the gum to prevent curling) varies from 3 to 4 on each stamp, with 4 being the most common. The colour of this gum is most often cream, though some printings have colourless or white gum. The gum on the flat plate printings varies from a mottled deep brownish gum, all the way to a light cream gum with a satin sheen. The sheen on this gum varies from semi-gloss to satin.

Aside from all this, there is also the largely unexplored issue of wet rotary versus dry rotary printings, and the possibility exists for the issuance of extremely rare rotary printings similar to those found on US issues of this period. In those cases the rarities result from the decision to perforate coil waste sheets and reissue them as sheet stamps. Canadian specialists historically have missed this connection between US and Canadian philately of this period, given that the Canadian post office leased Stickney rotary presses from the US Bureau of Engraving & Printing. But, it seems highly probable to me, after seeing the work done by Julian Goldberg and John Dell on this issue, that such rarities could exist on this issue. The normal stamps show both a design size difference in the design widths (dry printings are wider) and in the perforation, where the wet rotary printings are perf exactly 11, while the dry printings are perf. 11.25. Supposedly all the 1c, 2c and 3c values, except the booklet stamps are wet rotary printings. The real prize items to look for are dry rotary examples of these first few values. We know they exist on the Medallion issue, so there would appear to be at least a chance that they would exist on this issue also. Coil waste stamps, if they exist, will have the same design dimensions as the coils, but will be perforated on all four sides.