Canadian Braille Guide Dog Stamp

The new Canadian Braille Guide Dog stamp has been a huge selling success! There were 3.5 million copies that were sold across Canada in the first four days that they were available to the public. The bad news is that in Canada, once stamps are sold out, they are no longer available. They do not reprint stamps like they do in other countries. The pace of the stamp’s selling set record for the Canada Post. So now we have an instant collector’s item to search for.

The 52 cent stamp has the denomination in both Braille and print, which is a first for Canada. They were sold in booklets of 10. Opening sales began on April 21st to coincide with the 100th anniversary of the Montreal Association for the Blind.

The dogs photographed came from the Lions Foundation of Canada Dog Guides training facility. Ten dogs were photographed with a total of 8 pictures used for the campaign. There were 100 images of each dog submitted for approval by the committee, which I am sure was no easy feat to accomplish.

An interesting bit of information is that the Canadian Guide Dogs for the Blind collects used postage stamps to raise funds for their organization. They collect special issues, foreign stamps and commemorative stamps. They do not collect regular every day stamps however. If you would like to donate any stamps to this worthy organization, send them to:

Canadian Guide Dogs for the Blind

National Office and Training Centre

PO Box 280

4120 Rideau Valley Drive N

Manotick, Ontario

K4M 1A3