Collecting First Day Covers of Canada

Gary Dickinson
Released February 2020.
144 pages, 8.5 × 11, Spiral bound.
Colour C$ 36.00 [ISBN 978-1-989280-06-5].

This is the first book-length treatment of this topic and will be of interest to those new to this area of philately or who have developed an interest that they wish to pursue in greater depth. Topics include collecting by stamp issue, cachet maker, theme, and postmark, with each approach being illustrated profusely with sample covers. Canadian cachet makers are emphasized, but American makers of FDCs for Canadian stamps are also discussed. Do-it-yourself cachet makers are well-represented.

The role of the Canadian Post Office in the production and distribution of FDCs is examined, as are cachet errors and oddities and information resources for the collector. The final chapter describes the ownership process beginning with deciding what to collect and concluding with disposing of a collection.

Dr. Gary Dickinson worked in B.C. secondary schools, colleges, and universities for thirty-five years until he retired in 2000. The last twenty years were at Okanagan College and Okanagan University College in Kelowna where he served as South Okanagan Regional Director for five years and Dean of the Faculty of Adult and Continuing Education for fifteen years. He was also Academic Vice-President for the two years prior to his retirement.

After his retirement, Dickinson continued his interest in continuing education by serving as a founder and President of the Society for Learning in Retirement, a 600 member organization providing educational programs for seniors in the Central Okanagan, chairing the Okanagan College Central Okanagan Advisory Committee, and serving on that institution’s Research Ethics Board. Gary and his wife Barbara have six grown children and were foster parents for twenty years.

Although his participation in philately was on an occasional basis since early youth, the hobby became a more serious avocation after he retired. He gradually redefined his area of interest as writing about first day covers rather than just collecting them, and he has published more than 300 articles in such periodicals as First Days, Canadian Stamp News, BNA Topics, Stamp Insider Online, First Impressions, and others as well as fifteen previous handbooks in a series published by the British North America Philatelic Society. He served as editor of the BNAPS FDC Study Group newsletter, First Impressions, from 2011 to 2018.