Lot 3 Canada #483&var 5c Yellow, Black and Red Lacrosse Players, 1968 Lacrosse Issue, Specialized Group of 8 VFNH Singles on Different NF, NF-fl, DF and DF-fl Papers, With Normal "5", Raised "5" and Dropped "5" Varieties

8 VFNH singles of the 5c yellow, black and red Lacrosse issue, on different NF, NF-fl, DF and DF-fl papers, with normal “5”, dropped “5” and raised “5” varieties as follows:
• NF greyish.
• DF-fl greyish, with a few LF, MF and HF flecks.
• NF-fl greyish, with a few LF, MF and HF flecks.
• DF-fl greyish white, with a very, very sparse concentration of LF, MF fibres, and a few HF fibres.
• DF greyish white.
• DF bluish white with raised 5 – gum disturbed, so not counted.
• NF-fl greyish, with a few LF, MF and HF flecks, with raised 5.
• DF greyish with dropped 5.

The raised and dropped 5 varieties come about as the result of minor vertical shifts of the black engraving. However, the vast majority of stamps examined will show no shift at all. When the paper is flecked, most stamps include just a few fluorescent fibres, which may be any combination of LF, MF or HF fibres. Our estimate counts the paper varieties as normal stamps and assigns a value of $5 to each of the raised and dropped 5 varieties. Based on this our estimate of the value is $11.75. The stamps offered here grade between 75 and 84 as follows:

Centering/Margins: 45/70, 50/70 and 54/70

Paper Freshness: 5/5

Colour: 5/5

Impression: 5/5

Absence of Visible Paper Flaws: 5/5

Perforations: 10/10

This is the second of the experimental perf 10 issues printed by BABN. The paper is generally always DF or is very moderatey flecked with a few HF or HB fibres. Greyish and greyish white are the default colours under UV, with bright cream, ivory and deep NF violet grey being the uncommon types. The so-called fluorescent paper on the Curling issue is really not much brighter than other flecked examples of any of the other perf. 10 BABN issues like this issue, George Brown, or the Lacrosse stamp. My experience is that any fluorecent paper on these issues os much, much scarcer than the dull papers, easily by a margin of 20 to 1. So, I would disagree with Unitrade's classification of the dull paper being the better stamp on the 1969 Curling issue. I have done my best to capture these differences by taking pictures with my camera under UV light, but the differences can be harder to see than in real life. That should be borne in mind if you are looking at the scans and cannot tell the difference between them.