Canada 1959 'St. Lawrence Seaway Invert'

One design for two countries

The St. Lawrence Seaway, a system of locks and canals linking the Great Lakes with the Atlantic Ocean, opened to shipping on April 25, 1959, and was formally opened on June 26, 1959, by Queen Elizabeth II and U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower. The 306-kilometer stretch between Montreal and Lake Ontario alone required seven locks, five in Canada and two in the United States, and the project is widely ranked among the great engineering feats of the century.

To mark the opening, the two countries issued stamps on the same day, June 26, 1959. It was the first time Canada and the United States had collaborated on a joint issue. Proposals came in 1954 in the United States and in 1956 in Canada, and a Canadian stamp newspaper notes that planning the stamps took almost as long as building the seaway.

The designs were nearly identical, the work of Canadian and American artists together. The national archives of Canada credit four designers, Alan L. Pollock, Ervine Metzl, William H. Buckley and Arnold J. Copeland, and two engravers, Yves Baril and Donald J. Mitchell. Each stamp shows the Canadian maple leaf and the American eagle in interlocking rings over a map of the Great Lakes, printed in blue with captions in red. The Canadian stamp is bilingual, headed "St. Lawrence Seaway / Voie Maritime du St. Laurent"; the American one reads "United States." Each paid its country's first-class letter rate: five cents in Canada, four cents in the United States.

Canada's Postmaster General William Hamilton called the seaway an outstanding example of what friendly cooperation between the two countries had achieved.

How the error happened

The two stamps were made differently. The U.S. Bureau of Engraving and Printing had acquired a Giori press in 1955 that could print up to three colors in a single pass, and used it for the American stamp. The Canadian stamp, printed by the Canadian Bank Note Company, went through the press twice, once for each color, with a separate engraved plate for each.

That second pass was where it went wrong. On a few sheets, the paper was fed in turned 180 degrees, so one color landed upside down relative to the other. Collectors usually call the result an inverted center; a Canadian stamp newspaper describes it as the red text printed upside down. Either way, the map and emblems point one way and the lettering the other.

The error never appeared on the American stamp. According to a destruction certificate cited by one stamp guide, the printer found and destroyed 19 error sheets itself. A few panes slipped through to post offices.

The Winnipeg find

The first report came from Winnipeg. On August 20, 1959, a young office boy at the Marlborough Hotel bought 30 stamps at the post office counter in the nearby Eaton's department store. The clerk tore a block of 30 from a fresh pane of 50. Back at the hotel, stamps were stuck on envelopes and mailed before anyone noticed; one account says the woman handling the mail only realized something was wrong when she saw that the stamp she had just applied looked upside down.

In early September the Winnipeg dealer Kasimir Bileski bought 26 of the 30 from the hotel's office staff for $1,000 apiece, in Canadian funds. The other four had gone out on letters mailed by Mildred Mason, who handled the hotel's mail. The remaining 20 stamps of the Winnipeg pane had been sold over the counter and were apparently all used on mail. Bileski later stumped the panel of the national television quiz show "Front Page Challenge" with the story.

As the news spread, the Post Office Department hunted for more error sheets in its stock. On September 11, 1959, a pane of 50 was found at the Winnipeg post office and a postal clerk in Peterborough, Ontario, found another; both went back to Ottawa. A pane at Picton, Ontario, had already been partly used: 25 stamps went out on Bank of Nova Scotia mail on August 10, 1959, before anyone noticed. The finder kept two, gave one to a friend, and sold the remaining 22 through a Toronto dealer to Bileski for $21,250.

A pane found in Joliette, Quebec, had three stamps used on mail and 17 stuck to window envelopes before the error was noticed; the rest were sold, more than 10 in New York and 20 to Bileski for $11,900. A former post office employee also turned up with a block of 10, reportedly from a third Winnipeg sheet, which he sold off a stamp or two at a time over many years.

How many exist

No one knows the exact number. A Canadian stamp newspaper has reported both "about 400" known and "more than 200" in existence. One veteran dealer's 2005 study counted about 200 mint examples in private hands, against about 100 for the U.S. Inverted Jenny. A 2017 auction catalog said the known inverts are believed to come from two sheets of 200 stamps, of which more than 100 were found in postal stock and returned to Ottawa for destruction.

Some of the most important pieces are in public hands. The Library and Archives of Canada holds a full pane of 50 and a block of 10, and the Smithsonian's National Postal Museum has a single on exhibit. The largest multiples available to collectors are a block of 10 from the top two rows of the sheet and a block of six from the bottom right corner, which once formed a block of 10 with a block of four now separated from it.

Used examples on cover are scarcer than mint stamps. The 2005 study listed 17 covers and postcards, the earliest being the Picton cover of August 10, 1959. That cover sold at a London rarity auction in May 1980, where it was correctly described as a first day of use, for £7,500. A Canadian catalog's editors have likewise recorded 13 covers and four postcards properly used.

Single mint copies trade regularly. A never-hinged, very fine example sold at auction in New York in August 2019 for $7,500, more than C$9,900 at the time.

What to look for

On a normal stamp the blue map and the red headings both read the right way up. On the error, one is upside down relative to the other. The stamp measures about 1 by 1 7/16 inches (2.5 by 3.7 cm) and is perforated 12.

Because the inverts reached the public only through ordinary post office panes, they come without plate numbers. Canada's post office trimmed plate numbers from panes sent to post offices; plate blocks were sold only through the Philatelic Bureau. A genuine invert with a plate number block is therefore not possible.

Condition varies widely. A Canadian catalog warns that many Seaway inverts show minor imperfections because they were mishandled by the non-collecting public who found them in 1959. Never-hinged, well-centered copies with no fingerprints or gum bends draw the strongest interest.

Canada's Inverted Jenny

Canada has only three inverts on regular-issue stamps: the 1959 Seaway, the 1992 $1 Runnymede Library and the 1995 $2 Truro School. The Seaway came first, and it remains the most famous Canadian error.

The postal service had prided itself on guarding against the release of error stamps, which made the 1959 discovery a national news story. More than six decades later, the stamp still marks the joint achievement it was printed to celebrate, with half of its design turned on its head.

The numbers

Issue date

June 26, 1959

Face value

5 cents

Printer

Canadian Bank Note Company, two-color engraving in two press passes

Colors

Blue and red on white paper

Perforation

12

Size

About 1 x 1 7/16 inches (2.5 x 3.7 cm)

Pane size

50 stamps

Known examples

About 400 by some accounts; about 200 mint in private hands by others

Recorded on cover or card

17 (2005 listing)

Error sheets destroyed by the printer

19, per a destruction certificate cited by one stamp guide

Timeline

1. 1954

   Proposals for a seaway stamp come forward in the United States; Canadian proposals follow in 1956.

2. Apr 25, 1959

   The St. Lawrence Seaway opens to shipping.

3. Jun 26, 1959

   Canada and the United States issue their joint Seaway stamps as Queen Elizabeth II and President Eisenhower open the seaway.

4. Aug 10, 1959

   In Picton, Ontario, 25 inverts go out unnoticed on Bank of Nova Scotia mail, the earliest recorded use.

5. Aug 20, 1959

   A Marlborough Hotel office boy buys 30 stamps at Eaton's in Winnipeg, the first reported find.

6. Sep 1959

   Winnipeg dealer Kasimir Bileski buys 26 of the Winnipeg stamps for $1,000 each in Canadian funds.

7. Sep 11, 1959

   Error panes of 50 are found at the Winnipeg post office and in Peterborough, Ontario, and returned to Ottawa.

8. May 10, 1980

   The earliest recorded cover, Picton, August 10, 1959, sells at a London rarity auction for £7,500.

9. Apr 2003

   Philatelist Charles Verge publishes a detailed account of the discovery in a U.S. stamp magazine.

10. Nov 2005

    A study by Canadian dealer John Jamieson lists only 17 recorded covers and postcards bearing the invert.

11. Aug 2019

    A never-hinged, very fine single sells at auction in New York for $7,500.

12. May 5, 2022

    A never-hinged example from the Robert J. Barish collection is offered at auction in New York.

The world in 1959

• Jan 3, 1959

  Alaska is admitted as the 49th U.S. state.

• Feb 20, 1959

  The Canadian government cancels the Avro Arrow interceptor program.

• Mar 9, 1959

  Mattel's Barbie doll debuts in the United States.

• Jul 24, 1959

  Richard Nixon and Nikita Khrushchev hold the "Kitchen Debate" in Moscow.

• Aug 21, 1959

  Hawaii is admitted as the 50th U.S. state.

• Aug 26, 1959

  The original Mini car is launched in England.

• Sep 14, 1959

  The Soviet probe Luna 2 becomes the first human-made object to reach the Moon.

Price record

A realized auction price is what a buyer actually paid on the date shown, including the buyer's premium where the sale reported it. It is the strongest kind of reference price, and it is a record of one sale of one object on one day, not a promise of what the next example will bring.

By reference price, Canada 1959 'St. Lawrence Seaway Invert' is number 71 of 100 in the stamps entries of the FLOAT 100. 82 of those 100 rest on a realized sale; the rest carry an asking price or a guide value, and each page says which. Rank within the FLOAT 100 itself (50 here) is editorial: how much an object defines its field, not price alone.

Did you know

• The Seaway stamps were the first joint issue between Canada and the United States.
• The American stamp was printed in one pass on a Giori press; only the Canadian stamp, printed in two passes, could come out inverted.
• The earliest recorded use of the invert came 10 days before anyone noticed the error, on Bank of Nova Scotia mail in Picton, Ontario.
• Winnipeg dealer Kasimir Bileski told the story of the find on the national TV quiz show "Front Page Challenge" and stumped the panel.
• There are no genuine invert plate blocks, because post offices received panes with the plate numbers trimmed off.
• Canada has only three inverts on regular-issue stamps, and the Seaway was the first.