During their Civil war, the United States experienced an important shortage of cash. To deal with this problem, several substitutes were created: tokens, patriotic tokens, store’s scripts, fractional currency, etc... Even postage-stamps were used as money, whether in their usual form, in the form of notes that could then be traded for stamps or in the form of encased postage stamps. Many businessmen will seize this opportunity to order these pieces from John Gault, the owner of the patent.
An encased postage stamp is a stamp covered with a layer of mica and placed in a brass metallic envelope. These stamps could then last longer than the regular stamps and permitted those who issued them to advertise themselves on the back of the metallic envelope.
A Canadian company who was in the banking business, Weir and Larminie, did just that. The causes for this issue are not clear and we can only formulate hypothesis. Some people believe that it was just for their own leasure, other that it was a way to create small change for the exchanges with the United States. According to another theory, Weir and Larminie were exposing all the forms of American money of that era: Federal issues, tokens, store’s scrips and, of course, the encased postage stamps. Even if it is difficult to choose between all theses hypothesis, we do know yhat the pieces do exists. However, the fact that there are only about forty of them negates the possibilty that they were issued for circulating purposes.
If the name Larminie does not ring a bell to most people, it is not the case for William Weir, especially for those who know a little about the economic history of Montreal. During the American Civil War, Weir was a governmental agent charged with the task of returning the numerous American pieces of silver sent to Canada in order to take advantage of the difference between the rate of silver and the rate of gold. He was also an administrator for two French-Canadian banks: la Banque Jacques-Cartier and la Banque Ville-Marie. When la Banque Jacques-Cartier went bankrupt, he was accused of fraud and had to serve a two years jail sentence.
We can find the pieces of Weir and Larminie in four denominations: 1 cent, 3 cents, 5 cents and 10 cents. The 10 cents denominations are usually the ones associated with encased postage stamps. The one cent stamp is blue and shows Benjamin Franklin.The 3 cents and 10 cents stamps both show George Washington: the first one is pink and the other one yellow-green. Finally, the 5 cents stamp is brown- red and shows Thomas Jefferson.
A 10 cents piece was sold for 420$ at Torex auction in Toronto in the spring of 95, which was a rare occasion to purchase an canadian encased postage stamp. This type of piece can interest two types of collector: the philatelist and the numismatist.
Copyright © Dominic Labbé and ANFC 1995Brought to you by Association des Numismates Francophones du Canada