Broken Medallion on this Canada stamp.....any knowledge of this.

john o'neil

I won an auction of som nice Canadian stamps. This particular plate block was on a page of the collection marked "Varieties", and written next to this block was " Broken Medallion". If you look at the upper left stamp, at the medallion below the upper left maple leaf you will see it the "break". I see nothing in Unitrade re: this. Anyone know anything about this?

Harry Patsalos

John, first of all it is not a Plate Block just a Block of 4. I wouldn't put too much value on it. It is what we call a "Flyspeck" Variety, probably not constant or just not worthy of a Unitrade Number.
Always fun to collect, I would guess there are millions of these varieties throughout philately. The bold "In your eye" ones get all the glory of catalogue mention.

Paul Varty

The 'Line in Medallion' variety is a constant plate variety according to the book Canada Steel Engraved Constant Plate Varieties by Hans Reiche.
There are many such 'flyspeck' varieties in the George V - George VI eras.
These type of varieties are worth a small premium, especially in blocks and in plate pieces that can determine plate position.
In general, you should expect valuations somewhat less than catalogue listed varieties.
For example, the catalogue listed variety on #211 is the 'weeping princess' variety. Your 'Line in Medallion' variety, which is just a plate scratch, would be worth maybe 20-30% of the 'weeping princess'.

You may wish to refer to website FlySpecker.com run by Scott Robinson for more info about this type of variety https://www.flyspecker.com/index.html

Also, Hans Reiche published a number of books about Canadian stamp varieties in the 1960s-70s. All out of print but you can find them occasionally online.

john o'neil

Very interesting info Paul. Thankyou!