Comments by Del Peters

Del Peters is a noted collector and researcher of Canadian tagging errors. He provides extensive material on the subject at his website on Canadian tagging errors, including extensive listings of all known Canadian tagging errors.

Issue 151 (April-June 2008) of The EFO Collector contained an e-mail Del sent to the Editor. The e-mail contained 6 illustrations that could not be included in the issue due to space limitations. Here, we reproduce Del's e-mail as well as the illustrations to which the e-mail refers.

It's ironic to receive your email as I started up the computer to reply to the email John [Jamieson] had sent you,and your response had arrived. I think when John [Jamieson] talked me into taking on this project, it was for the purpose of him having a ready financial outlet for all the tag varieties he had on hand.

It did however develop into a major project requiring hundreds if not thousand of hours reclassifying all the tag errors we knew of at that time. I then had to scan all the errors you see on the website into the computer via Adobe Illustrator and then send them to Robin Harris for inclusion in the website via Photoshop. This from someone not computer literate. I purchased the remains of the Ken Rose/GD Mass collection from John so I had a tremendous base to start from. Also with John and Robin Harris as resources, it made it that much more enjoyable and together all three of us were able to give some semblance of order to these varieties.

As I novice I was unable to reconcile why Ken had used the G1 designation for the 2 bar tags etc. We therefore decided to simplify the process for those who were not that totally familiar with tag varieties, so they could understand it easier. The Winnipeg and Ottawa major designations and/or tagging was easy to do as the Winnipeg tag was no longer being used. We used the Rose sub-classes and renumbered some of them.

The Ottawa tag numbers were a little more difficult as time progressed due to die cut and perf shifts and when you had them shift both ways, it created a larger number of potential errors.We also reclassed the 2 bar tags as G2 and the 4 bar tags as G4 etc. I have attached 6 Jpeg scans that outline the various errors and their designations. If you have any questions, please feel free to write me. You can also use any of these scans in the preparation of your next article and you can use any of the material that is on the tagging website in your publication as well.

I think it is important that if we are to try and get the public/stamp collectors interested in this aspect of the hobby, we should be unanimous in the descriptions both physical and numeric. I would be pleased to assist in any way you may require.

Thanks.

Del Peters