Plating the Twelve and a Half Cents Yellow Green Scott #18

Kenneth A Kershaw
Released January 2009.
258 pages, 8.5x11, spiral bound.
Colour C$ 46.00 [ISBN 978-1-897391-40-2].

Not content with having plated the Half Cent Maple Leaf, the 1898 Map Stamp, the 5¢ Beaver and five different stamps of Prince Edward Island, Ken Kershaw has now turned his attention to plating the Twelve and a Half Cents Yellow Green, Scott #18, issued in 1859. In this new work Ken has used today's technology to develop a new approach to this stamp, in the process taking the previous plating work of W. T. Lees-Jones and Geoffrey Whitworth to an entirely new level. In highly magnified colour Ken shows how each position can be identified through the location of guide dots in a particular area of the stamp, and illustrates both previously known and many newly discovered varieties and re-entries.

Ken Kershaw was born in England and became fascinated by plants at an early age. He graduated from Manchester University with a B Sc degree in Botany in 1952. After military service he went on to a Ph. D. degree 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 modeling and data analysis. He obtained his D Sc 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 and many articles.

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.