Canada #337p(var) 1c Chocolate Queen Elizabeth II, 1954-1962 Wilding Issue, Upper Right Blank Winnipeg Tagged Block of 4, Perf. 12 x 11.9, DF Gw Vertically Ribbed Paper, Smooth Semi-Gloss Gum, Bluish White Tagging With Extra Streak, VFNH

A VFNH upper right blank Winnipeg tagged block of 4 of the 1c chocolate Queen Elizabeth II stamp from the 1954-1962 Wilding Issue. Perf. 12 x 11.9 and printed on DF Gw Vertically ribbed paper. Smooth semi-gloss gum. The Winnipeg tagged stamps for this value are all printed on horizontal wove paper. Some of the printings are on paper that shows clear vertical ribbing on the back, while others are printed on smooth paper. The paper varies in terms of it's reaction under UV light, with dull fluorescent greyish, greyish white, or bluish white being most common. Sometimes a slightly darker non-fluorescent brownish paper can be found.

Finally, the intensity of the taggant varies from heavy, which appears deep yellow in normal light, to lightly applied, which appears almost invisible to the naked eye in normal light. Under UV light the heavily applied tagging appears to fluoresce light yellow, whereas the lightly applied tagging appears bluish white. This difference could be more of an optical illusion due to the difference in the concentration of the taggant chemical used, or it could represent a real difference in the chemical formula of the taggant compound used. Which of these two it is, is not yet clear.

The gum generally varies from cream to yellow in colour, and the sheen varies from a satin sheen to a semi-gloss sheen. The gum can also appear either smooth or streaky.

On the printings made from plates 11 and 12, we regularly see broken perforation pins. They appear to occur intermittently in the sheets on either the horizontal or vertical rows, in different locations, but almost never in two places at once. This tends to support the notion that the perforating machines used employed a rotary perforating wheel and that the perforating was done one row and column at a time, as is customary for line perforating. This block shows a skipped perforation along a vertical outside column, from a broken perforation pin. Unitrade values this block in this grade at $9 The block offered here grades 80 as follows:

Centering/margins: 50/70
Paper freshness: 5/5
Colour: 5/5
Impression: 5/5
Absence of visible paper flaws: 5/5
Perforations: 10/10