When I was a kid, I collected stamps and coins with my mother. I switched to First Day Covers (FDC) back when I entered grade 9 which happened in 1987. I decided to go this route because I found the cachets (informative envelopes) to be very interesting along with the unique ink stamp that graced each stamp issue. FDCs are issued for each stamp on the day it becomes public. In the old days, it was highly popular for folks to write first day cover on a blank envelope and mail it on the first day of issue. Then, various private cachet producers starting to provide services where they would do this for you. Soon, the envelopes themselves were thematic to the stamp going to be issued. In the past, this was very big among stamp collectors. These days, not so much. The downfall of FDC collecting here in Canada was when the Government decided to get a piece of the action by issues their own official FDCs. In Canada, that happened on 14/04/71 with the issue of the Maple in Four Seasons series. Soon thereafter, the private vendors one by one stopped producing their own cachets. By the 80s, there where only a few still in existence. These days, you can only get the official Canada Post versions for the most part. Because of this, there was a lot more variety found in the older stamps and this is reflected in my collection. Furthermore, back in the 80s, Canada Post would offer several different FDC versions using the same cachet such as a single stamp, 4 stamp corners, etc. These days, reflecting the downward spiral of FDC collecting, there are fewer options given these days. It is a sad fact that years ago, I would get a local Postal Outlet to put one aside of every official FDC into an envelope so that I could buy them every few months...and I was 1 of many. I believe I might be one of only a handful that do this now. I know for a fact that I am the only one at my postal outlet that does this now. it does not help that Canada Post is also issuing less and less stamps per year either. I have been collecting Canadian First Day Covers since the 80s...and see no need to stop now.
Here is my first FDC, dating to 1932. Back then there were no official FDCs...so this is very typical of many of the older ones.
IMG_8840A by
Chako, on Flickr
Here is a typical 4 FDC spread showing a stamp from 1980. The 2 larger cachets are official Canada Post ones. The smaller ones are from third party cachet makers. I am a bit sad to see this disappear.
IMG_8842A by
Chako, on Flickr
Here is another one from the same binder. The upper right is an official International Olympic Committee cachet. The smaller ones are third party. The first official Canada Post FDCs were also of the same size as these third party cachets. They did however ramp up to their larger size towards the end of the 70s.
IMG_8843A by
Chako, on Flickr
Here is the latest 2020 FDCs which feature the groups of 7, 4 showing here out of the 7 in the series.
IMG_8844A by
Chako, on Flickr
Here is a snapshot of my Canadian FDC collection. I roughly estimated that each binder can hold around 150 FDCs...which by my estimation means I now have a little over 6000 individual Canadian FDCs now.
IMG_8784A by
Chako, on Flickr
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