Lot 97 Canada #119xx 20c Gray Olive (Olive Green) King George V, 1925-1928 Admiral Issue, A VF Used Singles With Normal and Re-Drawn Framelines, Dry Printing, Niagara Falls Style 3 Precancel

Two very fine used singles of the 20c gray olive (olive green in Unitrade) King George V from the 1925-1928 Admiral Issue, dry printing with style 3 Niagara Falls, ON precancel. One has the normal frameline, while the other has the re-drawn frameline.

Walburn values these at $4 for fine. VF is much scarcer, and should be worth at least $8. The stamps offered here grade 75 as follows:

Centering/Margins: 35/60

Paper Freshness: 5/5

Colour: 5/5

Impression: 5/5

Absence of Visible Paper Flaws: 5/5

Perforations: 10/10

Cancellation: 10/10

Unitrade's treatment of the Admiral issue is quite simplified in the sense that only the broad shade groups are listed, and the retouched frameline is only listed on a few values, even though most of the first colours of each value can be found with both retouched frame and normal frame in the upper right spandrel of the design. In terms of shades, what we have done is to sort the stamps into each identifiable shade, name them using the Gibbons Stamp Colour Key and then attempt to assign each shade to one of the groups listed in Unitrade. This is fairly easy to do when you have all the shades identified and laid next to one another. The difference between the retouched and redrawn frameline is another source of confusion for many collectors. Basically, the normal frame, from the early printings has horizontal shading lines that terminate in a uniform straight line, with no vertical line connecting them. The retouched frameline is a light vertical line which has been added to join all the horizontal shading lines. It is generally only found on wet printings. The re-drawn frameline on the other hand is a thicker, heavier line and is only found on dry printings.