2008 Celebrate Media Release April 25, 2008
Collectors Eagerly Anticipating New Stamp on May 2
As soon as doors open on Friday, May 2, post offices across Canada will start selling a new 52-cent postage stamp celebrating the 150th anniversary of the first commercial oil well dug by James Miller Williams in Oil Springs, Ontario.
The new stamp depicts Williams as well as another famous oil pioneer, Charles Nelson Tripp, the man who used the gum beds of Oil Springs to create and sell asphalt to France.
It is being launched in tandem with another new stamp, one that commemorates the completion of TransCanada Pipeline in 1958. It is being launched in Calgary. Both stamps will be carried in Canadian post offices until the supply is all sold.
Stamp collectors pay particular attention to the first day Canada Post Corporation issues a new stamp so on May 2, there will not just one new stamp but a pair of new stamps. They are being launched as a pair because they are both “landmark events in Canada’s economic history”, according to Canada Post Corporation.
Although Oil Springs is home to fewer than 800 people 30 km. southeast of Sarnia, its post office expects brisk business that day. It will be the only location in Canada where letters and postcards using the new postage will get rubber stamped with a Day of Issue. This particular Day of Issue rubber stamp shows an oil derrick with “black gold” gushing out the top.
The rubber stamps used by Canada Post Corporation are called “cancellation rubber stamps”. And there is another cancellation stamp that will only be given at the Oil Springs Post Office, but it will be used for almost the next decade.
Designed by its postmistress Pat Bellemore, it shows an oil wagon being driven by a horse. This image is similar to an early logo for VanTuyl and Fairbank Hardware which opened in Petrolia in 1865 and continues today. It’s a well-known image, featured on the barn mural at Fairbank Oil Properties in Oil Springs and it is also painted on the windows of the Oil Springs Post Office.
On May 2, customers at the Oil Springs Post Office who use the new postage stamp will be able receive both cancellation stampings up until 3 p.m.
First Day Covers, designed envelopes treasured by stamp collectors, will be available at most post offices in larger centres beginning May 2 and continuing until they are sold out. These will have both new postage stamps. They will feature the oil derrick cancellation stamp and also a pipeline cancellation stamp. Although Oil Springs does not usually carry First Day Covers, Bellemore says she was able to order 100. Each will be $2.04 plus tax.
Bellemore has also purchased 100 plain envelopes for the Oil Springs Post Office and they will have the Day of Issue rubber stamp and sell for about 60 cents.
The First Day Covers and both new stamps will also be sold at the official stamp unveiling ceremony. The public is welcome to join dignitaries at the Oil Museum of Canada in Oil Springs from 3 to 5 p.m. The festivities will include new music compositions celebrating oil history and special presentations.
More information about the 150th anniversary events can be found at www.2008celebrate.com
For more info on this release Contact Pat McGee Pat.mcgee@ciaccess.com
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