As one of them has passed into the possession of the writer, we are able to particularize somewhat with reference to this particular perforation.... Our specimen is from the bottom of the sheet, or else the shears have been used, so that we find the perforation as it originally existed between each stamp, before separation. This perforation consists of oblique _curved_ parallel cuts; they are not straight, but show a very decided curve from right to left, looking at the face of the stamp. The other sides of our specimen present, having been torn from the stamp on either side, a very well defined saw-tooth perforation, very much like that found on the Bremen stamps, but much coarser, clearly gauging 13. It occurs to us that, perhaps, this is the 13 perforation listed by the London Society, although, had a specimen been before the society when the reference list was compiled, the peculiarity of this style of perforation would surely have been noted by them.
To return to the general subject, Mr. Donald A. King in his own article says:[66]--
It is an open question whether these stamps were delivered to the Canadian Post Office Department in a perforated condition or not. The manufacturers are wholly unable to throw any light on the subject; and while there is much to be said in favor of their having perforated the stamps, there are points against it almost as strong. In favor of it there is the fact that, at the date that these stamps were issued, it was more than probable that a firm like the manufacturers would have perforating machines. The normal gauge of the perforated set is 12, that being the only size of perforation ever used by the manufacturers, or their successors, the American Bank Note Company; indeed, they call 12 their standard and only gauge.
The stamps in issue from the time of the announcement of perforation in the Report of 1857, to the appearance of the decimal stamps in 1859, were the 1/2d., 3d., 6d., 7-1/2d., and 10d. values, but only the first three appeared with perforations. The first supply of the 10d. stamp, as we know, was received in January 1855, and was naturally unperforated. The first and only supply of the 7-1/2d. stamp was received probably in the second quarter of 1857, and these were all unperforated. The first supply of the 1/2d. stamp was doubtless delivered about midsummer of 1857, and these were evidently all unperforated. The other supplies received in the fiscal year of 1857 were 300,000 of the 3d. in September 1856, and the same number again in March 1857, together with the 50,078 of the 6d.[67] Evidently these were still in the unperforated class, as they were delivered before either the 7-1/2d. or 1/2d. supplies. We must therefore look to the supplies delivered _after_ the 30th September, 1857, as a basis for reckoning up the perforated series. The values and quantities given in the stamp accounts (already quoted) are as follows:--