This copy of a WLS-P06 Type I Anglo-Saxon design postcard has an ad by J.C. Wilson for their four postcard designs available (at that time) for purchase. The card, not postally used, would presumably have been used as a mailing to stationers to promote their cards to resellers.

Another example of a postcard from the elusive J.C. Wilson Sports & Pastimes series has been added—card no. 13 showing vignettes of The Saddle and Wheeling, not postally used.

A new example of a postcard from the elusive J.C. Wilson Sports & Pastimes series has been added—card no. 15 showing vignettes of Canoeing and Yachting, postally used December 28, 1898 to Belgium from Montreal.

A business use of the WLS-P08 Type I Maple Leaf For Ever patriotic postcard has been added. The card was mailed from Sackville, NB, with a Dec 15 1899 split ring cancel, to Moncton NB, by the Post Printing Co., acknowledging payment for a subscription to the Sackville Post until December 1900.

The formatting of WLS-E10 Soldiers of the Queen Redesign has been updated to the current site format.

A copy of the Hotel Carslake use of the WLS-E12 “The Queen” design has been added. As is consistent with other examples found of this business use, the cover is the E-3 variety, with the uncoloured beaver on the front and song back 16, with the lyrics of “God Save the Queen” on the back. This example has been used from Montreal, with a Montreal flag cancel dated December 22, 1900. The back bears a December 24 receiver from the destination of Haydenville, Mass. USA.

I’ve also updated the WLS-E11 “Tattered Flag” page to the current format.

A new J.C. Wilson patriotic cover of the What We Have We’ll Hold design, WLS-E07 Type II, has been added. The cover bears a Toronto split ring cancel on the reverse that was used briefly between July 1, 1900 and December 6, 1901.

This example of a J.C. Wilson pioneer patriotic postcard of the WLS-P06 Type I bears a 2¢ Map Stamp postmarked with a Montreal Flag cancel dated December 16, 1898, mailed to Glasgow Scotland.

A J.C. Wilson patriotic pioneer postcard mailed to Venice, Italy on January 6, 1900, has been added to the site. The WLS-P08 P-1 card, with a 2¢ QV Numeral stamp, bears a Venice receiving cancel dated January 30, 1900.

A new instance from J.C. Wilson’s Sports series has been added. The new card is number 20 in the series, which expands the series by two cards from the previously know card 18. This card was postally used from Windsor, Ontario to Wilmington, Ohio, USA on August 23, 1900. The card shows Water Polo & Quoits as the featured sports.

This J.C. Wilson Rule Britannia cover was mailed to Stephens & Son In San Diego, California with a 1¢ QV Numeral stamp, cancelled wth a Montreal roller cancel, paying the rate for samples, rather than the 2¢ letter rate. The cover bears the rubber stamp “Samples from J.C. Wilson & Co. Montreal”. The back bears a partial receiver cancel. The Covers Rates page has been updated to the current web site format.

A very scarce variety of the J.C. Wilson pioneer patriotic postcard, WLS-P02 Type I P-9, has been added. This variety has uncoloured address panels with rounded ends instead of square ends. The variety was not known to Henry Gates, but had been previously identified by another dedicated J.C. Wilson collector, and is something I have only recently acquired.

This example of the WLS-P09 Type I “Soldiers of the Queen” design has been used by St. Luke’s Church Bible Class, on Montreal on March 1st, 1900, commemorating the involvement of classmates injured in the Boer War. The card states:

“Fall In! Dear Friends, Scholars, Past and Present Members of the Class, will kindly attend at ___, on Sunday, March 4, to express our sympathy and admiration for the three members of the Class who fought in the late action at Paardeberg, South Africa. Two of the Scholars are reported wounded. Come, and bring a friend!Yours Sincerely, Henry J. Dart. God Save the Queen!”

A hand-written notation on the card notes “one has since died”.

The page on the WLS-E02 Type II, “The Flag That Braved” design, patriotic envelopes produced by J.C. Wilson & Co. have been updated to reflect the current site format.

This J.C. Wilson patriotic postcard of The Flag That Braved design, WLS-P02 Type II, bears Canada’s first Christmas Stamp, the Map stamp. In this case, the postcard was postmarked December 26, 1898, tied with a Morris Street Halifax NS CDS postmark, and mailed to Cambridge Mass USA, thanking the recipient for “dainty & pretty” “Xmas gifts”.

The Canadian Post Office announced the availability of the Map Stamp on December 3rd, 1898. Early usage of the stamp on cover or postcard is quite rare. On December 25th, the Imperial Penny Postage Scheme came into effect, allowing postage of 2¢ per ounce on mail between Britain & the colonies.

It seemed fitting to post this card on the site 119 years to the day later.

I’ve update the WLS-P06 Type I page to the current site format, and added a number of business use examples.

This example of a J.C. Wilson patriotic postcard shows a use by the company for promoting its patriotic postcard line to potential resellers. The text on the back of the card states: “Wilson’s Patriotic Cards & Envelopes; (4 designs) Cards $2.00 per 1000, Envelopes $3.00 per 1000, Sample 100 assorted sent by mail, post paid, 50¢”. The text appears on the back of the Anglo-Saxon design, WLS-P06 Type I, variety P-3, with the winking lion.

A very nice copy of WLS-P01 has been added, postally used with a 1¢ Jubilee stamp with a Halifax squared circle postmark dated July 22, 1897, about a month after the first appearance of this J.C. Wilson postcard design. What makes this more interesting is the use of the card as a notification that W.B. Day would be visiting a potential customer of W. & C. Silver of Halifax, with a full range of their dry goods, mantles and clothing four days hence.

The Postcard Postal Rates page has been re-introduced in the current site format, with some new material added.

I’ve updated the page illustrating J.C. Wilson patriotic postcards with overseas destinations to the current site format, adding additional background to the cards when available.

A WLS-P02 Type II card has been posted December 21, 1901 with a 2¢ Jubilee stamp mailed from Saint John N.B. to Liverpool, England with a Liverpool Packet Boat cancel dated January 2. The image has been altered slightly in the area of the Packet Boat cancel in order to enhance legibility.

Another page has been updated to the current web site format. WLS-P02 Type I now illustrates more material and more depth than the previous format allowed.

This WLS-P05 J.C. Wilson & Co. “Remember the Maine” patriotic pioneer postcard has been mailed from Quebec City on December 16, 1901, with a 1¢ QV Numeral stamp to The Atlas Society in New York City. The card bears a rubber stamp noting “Returned to Sender, Cannot Be Forwarded” dated December 20, 1901. The card bears a December 21, 1901 Quebec City postmark upon its return.

This example of a WLS-P09 Type I “Soldiers of the Queen” design has been used for business use by J.J. Turner & Sons, Sail, Tent, Awning & Flag M’f’rs of Peterborough, Ontario. The Boer War-themed pioneer patriotic postcard was postmarked with a Peterborough July 11, 1901 CDS cancel on the front, and bears a Lindsay, Ontario squared circle cancel of the same date on the reverse.

This is not the only example of a J.C. Wilson patriotic used by J.J. Turner & Sons for their business. A copy of a WLS-P10 Soldiers of the Queen Redesign card was sold by auction in June 1987 by Jim Hennok. That card was postmarked July 20, 1901, 9 days after this card was used.

I’ve also converted the WLS-P09 Type 1 postcard listings to the current site format and added additional material.

A very nice copy of J.C. Wilson’s Tattered Flag pioneer patriotic postcard from the Boer War era has been added to the site. This card, mailed from Montreal on March 21, 1902 to Crowell & Kirkpatrick Co. of New York, was received in New York on March 22nd.

This example of a WLS-P02 J.C. Wilson postcard has been used by G.H. Lanigan, dealer in paper & stationery, bookbinder and printer, of 92 King Street West of Hamilton, Ontario.

I’ve been recently updating a number of the site’s pages to the most recent format, starting with the patriotic postcard section, and will continue working through with these updates.

One of the rarest of J.C. Wilson’s patriotic postcards is the design known as WLS-P10, “Soldiers of the Queen Redesign”, which was issued during the Boer War. This particular example is unused.

This example of a WLS-P05 postcard has been used from Brooklyn, NY, USA to Switzerland, postmarked March 17, 1899.

This copy of WLS-P02 Type II has been mailed on February 6, 1900 with a 1¢ Jubilee stamp by J.B. Harper of 26 Palace Street, Brantford, Ontario to Captain Stitt of Princeton, Ontario. Captain James Stitt of No. 4 Company, 22nd Battalion The Oxford Rifles (which was redesignated 3 months after this card was written on 8 May 1900 as the 22nd Regiment The Oxford Rifles), was a Private in the 22nd Battalion when he received the Canada General Service Medal for his role in the Fenian Raids in 1866. Harper asks Captain Stitt if Stitt could send him Harper’s medal, as he read in the newspaper that the medals had just come in. While the details of the medal are not mentioned, this may be a Boer-War-related medal.

One of the better known business use covers from the J.C. Wilson patriotics series is the use by Hotel Carslake of the WLS-E12 “God Save the Queen” patriotic cover. This particular cover comes with the Hotel Carlake letterhead enclosed with the envelope when it was mailed from Montreal on November 9, 1900 to Afton, New York, USA.

Another J.C. Wilson Soldiers of the Queen WLS-P09 Type I postcard mailed to France has been added, this time mailed from Hamilton Ontario to Bastia. The card bears a 1¢ QV Numeral stamp cancelled with a Hamilton Flag A cancel, applied over the words “Printed Matter”, with the sender striking out the “Private Post Card” text of the card.

This WLS-P04 shows an early use of this design, postmarked June 11, 1898. The card bears a hand notation from Buffalo, suggesting that the purchaser may have either been on the Canadian side of the border when they purchased the card, or that J.C. Wilson had US distributors in Buffalo from an early date.

I’ve posted a series of postcards mailed from the Boer War to Mimico, Ontario, likely from Capt. Dr. Henry Ernest Tremayne of the 10th Canadian Field Hospital, mailed with Army Field Post postmarks on a series of Klerksdorp Transvaal postcards on the subject of the Anglo-Boer War, mailed to his niece.

I’ve added a section on postcards & covers contemporary to the J.C. Wilson era, primarily related to the Boer War. Some of this material was brought forward to conform to the new site design, while some additional material has been added, and some previous material is still awaiting update. The largest section of new material are the “Soldiers of Canada in South Africa” pioneer patriotic postcards by W.J. Gage.