Rare propaganda stamps date to the First World War and the 1920s.
American presidents have imposed tariffs on Canada before.
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One of U.S. President Donald Trump’s heroes is “Gilded Age” President William McKinley, who imposed tariffs up to 57 per cent between 1896 and 1901.
It was popular in his day, when McKinley was known as “The Napoleon of Protection.” But today, McKinley is mostly remembered for being one of four U.S. presidents to be assassinated.
When U.S. tariffs were imposed, Canada defended itself with its own tariffs, and Buy Canadian/Buy Local campaigns.
Often this came in the form of newspaper advertising. But Don Stewart of MacLeod’s Books has a rare collection of Buy Canadian stamps, as well as a 12-stamp series that urged Winnipeggers to buy homemade products.
“Buy Made In Canada Goods,” reads a classic image of a beaver atop a maple leaf.
“Is this made in Canada?” asks another stamp featuring a customer questioning a shopkeeper.
“Keep the goods in Canada & the money too,” states a guy in a Mounties-style hat emblazoned with a maple leaf. “Order Canadian products.”
Some of the stamps were produced in both English and French. Stewart has one that features a little girl saying “My Mama Says: Made in Canada Goods For Me” on one stamp and “Maman Dit: Les Produits du Canada Pour Moi” on another.
These weren’t official post office stamps, they were promotional stamps to be added to a letter or postcard, often during wartime.
“During World War One, the idea of doing poster stamps really came into vogue, and you encounter letters or envelopes with these,” said Stewart.
“They were essentially propaganda to buy Canadian or buy savings bonds. They were always multi-coloured, nice and bright.”
Because they weren’t official postal stamps, they are known as Cinderella stamps, specifically promotion and propaganda stamps. They tend to be rare.
“They’re kind of like the thing you would find in a stamp album that collectors would keep as a keepsake,” said Brian Grant Duff of All Nations Stamp and Coin. “They appeal to a fraction of the collecting community, and they’re mostly associated with times of war.”
The late collector R.G. Lafreniere published two editions of A Field Guide to the Cinderella Stamps of Canada, in 2012 and 2015. Most of Stewart’s stamps appear to be from the First World War, or perhaps the 1920s.
The Winnipeg stamps are more colourful and dynamic than the Buy Canadian ones. Stewart says they are an example of a local campaign to “try to get people to spend money in their community, rather than it going off elsewhere.”
This was important when they were published in 1914 because Canada was in an economic recession that had started just before the First World War.
A single artist seems to have designed the Winnipeg stamps, which were produced by Bulman Bros. printers and may have been put out by the Winnipeg Chamber of Commerce.
They are quite striking, with little detailed vignettes of Winnipeg life that could easily have been made into posters. They are pro-business, but sometimes use a bit of revolutionary imagery — one shows a hand grasping three wads of cash labelled “wholesale payroll,” “mechanic wages” and “manufacturers payroll.”
They feature workers (“Keep our factory wheels going, buy made in Winnipeg products”), a businessman on a telephone (“Buy local made products, it’s good business for everybody”) and even Cupid, sitting on top of a box labelled Winnipeg products 1915 (“Resolve now to buy all you can in Winnipeg”).
All feature “Ask for goods made in Winnipeg” on the stamp perforations around the main image. They are a bit bigger than most of the Buy Canadian stamps, just under two inches high by two and five-eighth inches wide (five centimetres by 6.5 cm).
The smallest of the stamps is the Mountie, who is holding up a coin labelled “$” with one hand and a carton labelled “Made in Canada” with the other. It’s two inches high and one and five-eights wide (five centimetres by four cm).
Stewart thinks it would be a great image to reproduce, given the tariff war Trump is threatening Canada with.
