Canadian Philatelist Philatéliste canadien - The Royal Philatelic ...

Figure 2.
Figure 3.
Figure 4.
Control of Envelope Fluorescence
I selected another large batch of the “Flag
and Iceberg” Booklet 215 stamps. Setting
aside all the stamp pieces on coloured or
manila paper, together with all the white
envelope pieces that had coloured envelope
interiors, slogans or logos printed inside.
I sorted the remaining envelopes, all totally
white inside and outside, into groups
of relative fluorescence. To my surprise, I
found a natural division of 14 identifiable
envelope fluorescences. These ranged from
a dark brown cardboard-looking appearance,
through pale brown, a very dull violet
to a light violet range, a blue array ranging
from deep blue through a pale blue range,
then into a whiter range to an almost brilliant
white appearance. I initially and arbitrarily
labeled these fluorescences E-Dead,
E-None, then E-1 through E-12 (E representing
Envelope, and the number representing
a nominal scale). The 856 envelopes I
examined divided into the sub-quantity of
envelopes in their various fluorescences as
shown in Figure 2
Starting with the 191 envelopes that displayed
no fluorescence (“E-None” on my
arbitrary “Envelope” scale), I next proceeded
to soak separately the stamps from each
category of envelope fluorescence. I used
clean, fresh, warm water for each envelope
fluorescence group and allowed the stamps
to air-dry in my normal manner.
Examining under the long wave ultraviolet
light, my selection of 191 stamps, all
soaked from the “E-None” fluorescence
envelopes, I again divided the stamps into
their relative degrees of fluorescence as
observed on the gum side of the stamps.
I once again observed a pattern of 10 distinct
fluorescence levels, with considerable
variation in the quantities of stamps in each
level. The quantity of stamps obtained in
each range of fluorescence group is shown
in Figure 3.
This time I matched stamp fluorescences to
the arbitrary scale of envelope fluorescences
(E-Dead, E-None and E-1 through E-12) I had
created for sorting the envelopes. Assigning
the respective nominative labels I immediately
found that my arbitrary range of envelope
fluorescences exactly matched the range
78 • the CP / le PC • MA06