Traffic Lights

Traffic Lights

Traffic Lights are small spots indicating what ink colours were used to print the stamps. They appeared in the ‘80’s on the selvedge of full sheets and mini sheets, but not usually on souvenir sheets, with their small number of stamps. Many imaginative shapes that relate to the subject of the stamp, not just dots, have been used, and that's what I will be showing.

#1101 & #1102 - Round traffic lights, with the number ‘1’ in them were the first ones, used in 1986 for Science & Technology stamps. The set has 4 stamps, #1099-1103, of which I am showing only the last 2.

This booklet pane shows solid round TL‘s, which were the most common ones used in the early days. The pane of flags consists of #1184, the 1¢ value, #1185 the 5¢, and #1189 the 39¢ face. This booklet was used from 1988-90.

#1441 & 1442 - Canada in Space in 1992, with the hologram & satellite, has TL's as different star shapes. There are stars with 4, 5, 6, 7 & 8 points used, each one twice (10 colours).

The first of these:

#1546 - The Canadian Flag in 1995 celebrates the 30th Anniversary of the adoption of the maple leaf as our flag. It has maple leaves as TL‘s, and a flag in the top margin. This was a non-denominated stamp, valued at 43¢.

The next image:

#1649 - Calligraphy writing is shown around the edge of stamps celebrating 500 years anniversary of John Cabot‘s voyage of 1497, and a row of rectangles as TL‘s.

This group has 3 sets:

#1665 - In 1997, the Highland Games stamp had thistle shaped traffic lights.
#1691 & 1692 – Sable Island Horse & Peregrine Falcon, $2.00 stamps from 2005, had alternating birds & horses.
#1672 – 75th Royal Agricultural Winter Fair, where animals and crops are on display, has a variety of farm items as TL: a boot, rabbit, apple, blue ribbon, chicken, ear of corn & sunflower.

Four sets here:

#1698 Polar Bear has bear-shaped TL and a large paw print in the corner too.

The 3 next to it are 3 different TL‘s used on Christmas stamps in 1999:

#1815 - bells for 46¢
#1816 - stars for the 55¢
#1817 - holly leaves for the 95¢.

#1724 & #1725 - The Sumo Wrestlers in 1998 had alternating Maple Leaves & circle-shaped traffic lights, as well as 2 tabs, one each side, one in English & one in Japanese.

#1710 - Bird sets from 1998 to 2002 had diamonds.
#1779 - Marco Polo sailing ship in 1999 had signal flags as TL.
#1784 – TL‘s enlarged to show the Inukshuks for the Nunavut stamps.
#1799 – Quebec Bar Association has Scales of Justice as TL

#1738 -The stamp to honour William J. Roué, designer of the Bluenose, has sailing ships colour dots. There are also carpentry tools and ship design drawings in the selvedge.

#1778 - The stamp honouring the 50th Anniversary of the UBC Museum of Anthropology in ‘99 has round traffic lights, but also a couple of carvings in the selvedge.
#1784 - The stamp celebrating the establishment of Nunavut in 1999 has Inukshuks as TL (seen larger above in the group of 4 TL‘s)

The top image:

#1805 - World Rowing Championship in 1998 has rowing sculls shaped TL.

The lower one is:

The 2001 mini sheet of NHL All-Stars, #1885, with hockey players as TL. This is only the bottom edge of the sheet. Did you see the goalie in white?

The whales mini sheet, #1868-71, in 2000 has frogmen as traffic lights, with tails of the whales and descriptions of them in the selvedge. This image is small, but the actual sheet of 12 is 6.25 in x 8.25 in (16cm x 26cm).

Below it are the frogmen!

This grouping is from 4 sheets:

#1896-99 - Figure Skaters sheet has skaters in figure skating stances as TL's.
#1909 - The stamps commemorating Pierre Trudeau has his signature lapel rose as traffic lights.
#1911 - These hearts are from a booklet of roses from 2001
#1942 – University of Laval - The Universities issue, starting with University of Manitoba in 2002 has mortar board shapes.

The top 3 TL sets were scanned side-by-side, to show the variation in sizes that have been used in TL.

Not shown (other Universities, all with similar TL's):

#1941 – Manitoba;
#1943-44 - Trinity College & St. Mary‘s U. (‘02);
#1973-77 (‘03) – Bishop‘s, Western Ontario, St. Francis Xavier, Macdonald Institute & U. of Montreal;
#2033-34 (‘04) – Sherbrooke & U. of Prince Edward Island;
#2089 (‘05) – Nova Scotia Agricultural College;
#2172 (‘06) – Macdonald College;
#2209-10 (‘07) – HEC Montreal & U of Saskatchewan;
#2263 (‘08) – U of Alberta & #2264 U British Columbia (the mortar boards are tossed in the air)

#1948-51 - Corals in 2002 have 6 different coral shapes for traffic lights, the same shapes as the corals on the stamps. This is one of my favourite sets.

#2038-39 - Bird stamps in 2004 have stylized bird-shaped traffic lights
#2140 - The Year of the Dog has paw prints as TL's.
#2205 – International Polar Year 2007-08 has a thermometer as TL

#2142 - Queen Elizabeth‘s 80th Birthday is celebrated with a booklet where these Candles are used for the traffic lights. #2150 - Souvenir Sheet of 2 x $1.49 has the same candles.
#2118 - For Oscar Peterson, piano keys as colour marks. What else would they be?
#1693 - The moose $5.00 stamp has moose hoof prints as traffic lights.

#2154 – Canadians in Hollywood booklets (Lorne Greene, Fay Wray, John Candy & Mary Pickford) have movie cameras as TL. The same cameras were used with the 2008 set of “Canadians in Hollywood – the Sequel”, with Norma Shearer, Chief Dan George, Marie Dressler & Raymond Burr.
#2222 – Recording Artists Anne Murray, Paul Anka, Gordon Lightfoot & Joni Mitchell have performers in various poses. The top edge of this part is round because the booklets were issued as round shapes.
#2203 – 'Celebrate' stamps from 2007 have gifts as TL. Notice the sepentine die-cut perf.

#2159b ‘ Snow Birds, the Canadian Forces Acrobatics Team, have jet planes in close-flying formation
#2283 -British Columbia's 150th Anniversary from 2008 was about the Gold Rush, and the TL‘s are men in various mining or panning poses, with the last one jumping for joy.

This is a pair out of four stamps of bridges. The TL‘s are a series of suspension bridge sections spread across almost the whole width of the 2 stamps. Cool.

#2101 - the Souris Swinging Bridge in MB,
#2101 is Angus L Macdonald Bridge in NS.

I have found traffic lights to be a lot of fun in Canadian stamps, and I know there is more to come - from other countries as well as my own.

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