Postal History Information

I know the Canadian Archives site has been mentioned here before but, as
I recall, this has been with regard to the stamp information available
there.

I just came across another section (at
http://phila.collectionscanada.ca/index_e.asp
which I found interesting in which is posted scans of

"26,000 pages of official administrative directives from some 675
documents concerning the Canadian Post Office originally published
between 1759 and 1900. These include: the annual Canadian Official
Postal Guide (1863 to 1900), administrative circulars (1812 to 1900) and
a few federal government publications. The database allows users to not
only read the original documents online but also to search the documents
by word, phrase and/or date."

The Post Office Guides make interesting reading and include a mass of
data. Apart from listing all the Universal Postal Union member countries
(often by names not used today) and postage rates for Canada and
overseas, there is a comprehensive list of goods prohibited by various
countries. These include (from the 1900 Guide): "books of
social-democratic or socialist tendency" by Germany, "arms, opium,
sulphur, saltpetre, and lead" by Tangier, and "fresh meat" by Greece.
Bearing in mind that (according to the same guide) parcels for Europe
were routed through New York for weekly sailings, the last does not seem
unreasonable.

Another publications issued in 1900 was a circular to all postmasters
explaining how to work with the introduction of "stamp books made up of
twelve 2¢ stamps" which would be sold for 25¢ with the extra cent
helping to defray the costs of binding (Scott# BK1 valued at $2500 in
Unitrade 2002).

All the best,
Bob Watson