Canada #563avar 8c Multicoloured Buffalo Chase & Artifacts, 1972 Plains Indians Issue, A VFNH Pair Dot Under "N" of "Indians", Pos. 39, MF/HF Paper

A VFNH pair of the 8c multicoloured Buffalo Chase & Artifacts from the 1972 Plains Indians Issue dot under "n" of "indians", pos. 39, MF/HF paper. The lithographed stamps of this issue were printed by Ashton Potter, who employed many of the same techniques as Saults & Pollard, who printed the Krieghoff stamp, which is well known to specialists to have many constant plate varieties. Unitrade states that the stamps were printed in panes of 50, but what they do not tell you is how many panes made up the complete print layout for the presses, as this will determine the ultimate scarcity of many semi-constant varieties that occur in the panes. The Krieghoff stamp had a print layout that consisted of 6 panes of 50, so that one has to examine 300 stamps before one can be satisfied that they have seen all of the potentially constant varieties that exist. Furthermore, many of the known varieties occur on only one of the 6 panes in the layout, meaning that they only occur once in every 300 stamps. They are still constant, but are known as tertiary, rather than fully constant varieties. In studying this issue there are at least 6-8 varieties that we have found that are at least tertiary, and probably closer to 12-15 varieties. The varieties on offer in this sale, we believe, represents a good proportion of the number that exist, though potentially not all of them. In terms of paper, several variations of the basic chalk surfaced paper are found. Most are HB on the back, varying from HB10 to HB11 on the Irwin-Freeman scale, with a few HF9's or 8's existing. On the front, the fluorescence ranges from DF all the way up to HB. Unitrade only lists F/HB and HB/HB, with the later being a premium paper, but after going through several hundred corner blocks and singles, I can coNFidently state that stamps with DF and LF on front are scarcer than the HB/HB, and what is listed as F/HB actually exists as MF/HB and HF/HB, with all the numbers on the scale being found (i.e. MF6 and MF7, as well as HF8 and HF9).

Unitrade does not list this variety, but we estimate the value at $5. The pair offered here grades 84 as follows:

Centering/Margins: 54/70

Paper Freshness: 5/5

Colour: 5/5

Impression: 5/5

Absence of Visible Paper Flaws: 5/5

Perforations: 10/10