Plating the More Distinctive Re-entries in the Half Cent Maple Leaf Stamp II. Plating Criteria and Detailed Descriptions of the Third and Fourth Printings

Kenneth A. Kershaw
Released May 2006.
224 pages, 8.5x11, spiral bound.
B&W C$ 41.00 [ISBN 0-919854-82-6 ].

Ken Kershaw's Plating the More Distinctive Re-entries in the Half Cent Maple Leaf Stamp II. Plating Criteria and Detailed Descriptions of the Third and Fourth Printings is the latest BNAPS handbook. Volume I (January 2006) treated the first and second printings. In Volume II, the author describes his very surprising conclusion about the third printing, and then illustrates key findings from both the third and fourth printings using today's technology to the utmost. Both volumes on the Half Cent Maple Leaf stamp follow closely on Ken Kershaw's previous major effort (with Roger Boisclair), the four-book series The Canadian 1898 Christmas Map Stamp, A Definitive Plating Study.

Ken Kershaw was born in England and became fascinated by plants at an early age. He graduated from Manchester University with a BSc degree in Botany in 1952. After military service, he went on to a PhD, working on pattern in vegetation, and was appointed lecturer in Plant Ecology at Imperial College London in 1957. He was seconded to Ahmadu Bello University in northern Nigeria for two years. On his return to Imperial College he became involved with lichen ecology, particularly in alpine and arctic areas, in addition to his work on computer modelling and data analysis. He obtained his DSc in 1965 and was appointed Professor at McMaster University, Hamilton, in 1969. His research was then devoted heavily to the ecology of the Canadian low arctic and northern boreal forest areas, and in 1982 he was elected a fellow of the Royal Society of Canada. He is the author of several university texts.

Ken's passion for wild plants has been transferred to Canadian philately. He sees his plating work simply as the "taxonomy of bits of paper", and after a lifetime of plant taxonomy finds it a fairly straightforward and fascinating hobby.