Author Archives: Bret Evans

Garcelon sale nets ‘strong’ bids

Lot 465 featured a well-centered block of eight 1897 eight-cent orange (Unitrade #72) on vertical wove paper. With original gum and never hinged, it sold for $4,000, compared to a pre-sale estimate of $3,000-plus.

The Garcelon sale brings to a close a stamp story that started in 1932 when Ralph O. Garcelon, a collector who discovered he liked buying and selling stamps more than collecting them, opened up the Garcelon Stamp Company, in St. Stephen, N.B. At first he worked out of a room on the family farm, but... Continue reading →

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Eastern Auctions features Garcelon Stamp Company

Lot 357 features a group of 34 Toronto geometric fancy cancelled covers and six postcards, all from 1870 to 1874. It has an estimate of $1,000.

The final chapter in a Canadian stamp story will come to a close Feb. 25, when Eastern Auctions sells the final inventory of the Garcelon Stamp Company of St. Stephen, N.B. The business, familiar to most old-time collectors, was formed in 1932 by Ralph O. Garcelon, a collector who discovered he enjoyed buying and selling... Continue reading →

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Diversity is welcome on Canada’s stamps

After looking over the 2017 stamp program, or at least what we've seen of it, it would be kind of easy to throw a few rocks at Canada Post. There's a lot of same old, same old: hockey, flowers, more hockey, birds, UNESCO sites and even photography are all getting a bit tired. But these... Continue reading →

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Stamp auction results pushing strong market

While it has become somewhat fashionable to talk about how stamp collecting is a dying hobby, the actual market has a very different indication. Logic would tell us that since the number of stamps isn’t going down, a smaller collector base would mean less competition for stamps, and a weak market with prices dropping like... Continue reading →

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Canada 150 an opportunity for collectors to shine

We are just a few months away from 2017, the 150th anniversary of Confederation. We will probably use that title, since the official name of a 150th anniversary is sesquicentennial, not something that rolls off the tongue. While the peak of the celebration will be tied to July 1, the government has already made it... Continue reading →

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Both classic and modern material hotly contested in Halifax

The highest price of the October Eastern Auctions sale was paid for a set of die proofs of 1875 Registration stamps. The three lots, sold as a single item, realized more than $50,000.

Bidding was strong at two auctions held in Halifax in late October by Eastern Auctions Ltd. The first sale featured collections formed by the late Mel Baron. According to auctioneer Gary Lyon, demand from mail, phone, and floor bidders was strong throughout the sale, with many lots bringing prices well over the estimates. “The section... Continue reading →

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Witnessing the evolution of stamps in Canada

While the collector in us tends to have a conservative nature, stamps themselves continue to evolve. Today's postage stamps are dramatically different from those that I stuck into album pages as a young boy, which is to be expected. Back then most stamps were printed in one or two colours, self-adhesives just didn't seem to... Continue reading →

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Baron collection offers ‘great number of rarities’

One of the covers in a complete set of King George VI war effort stamps, with a block of four $1 destroyers and a warship cachet, sent by registered mail from Toronto terminal A.

For the first time in years, a seminal collection of first-day covers (FDCs) will go on the block when Eastern Auctions sells the Baron Collections on Oct. 28. Yohann Tanguay, of Eastern, said the collection was assembled over decades – as early as the late 1960s – and was then held and enjoyed by the... Continue reading →

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Semi-postals serve to help communities

Canada's first semi-postal stamps were issued to help pay for Canada's first Olympic Games, hosted by Montréal in 1976.

he main purpose of stamps, of course, is to prove pre-payment of postage, but sometimes they can do good work for society as well. That is the case of semi-postals, a special sort of stamp that also raises money for good causes. The concept goes back much further than many collectors realize. In 1890, Great... Continue reading →

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