n engine-turned background the word "REGISTERED" in large
uncolored Roman capitals is curved prominently across the centre. Below
is "LETTER STAMP", also curved but in smaller letters, while above is
"CANADA" on a straight label in still smaller lettering. At each end are
tables containing the value in words reading up at the left and down at
the right, and in the upper corners are large uncolored numerals plainly
denoting the value. Like all other Canadian stamps they were printed
from line-engraved plates on unwatermarked paper. They were at first
printed in sheets of fifty in ten horizontal rows of five stamps each.
Mr. Howes describes the marginal details as follows:--

The imprint was the same as the second type employed for the small
"cents" issue--"British American Bank Note Co. Montreal" in a
pearled frame--and likewise appeared four times on the sheet, as
already fully described in the chapter dealing with that issue. The
denomination of the stamp was also expressed as TWO CENTS, in the
shaded Roman capitals which we found in the case of the postage
stamps, over the first stamp in the top row of that value, but with
the 5 cent the word FIVE alone appears. The 8 cent we have not
seen. On the 2 cent there is also a large numeral 2, 7-1/2 mm.
high, over the last stamp in the top row (number 5) but the 5 cent
has none.

The stamps were ordinarily perforated 12, like the then current postage
stamps, but the 2c in orange and the 5c in dark green are both known
entirely imperforate.

The Postmaster-General's Report for 1877 stated that "the registration
charge on registered letters between the United Kingdom and Canada has
been reduced from 8 cents to 5 cents". This, naturally, largely reduced
the demand for the 8 cents stamp though it is probable that the 8c rate
still applied to foreign countries. Shortly afterwards (the exact date
has not been traced) the registration fee on letters to all foreign
countries was reduced to 5 cents so that the use of the 8c denomination
was entirely abolished. The stamps in the hands of postmasters were
called in and destroyed and by examining the official figures relating
to the numbers originally issued and those destroyed Mr. Howes estimates
that about 40,000 of these 8c registration stamps were used.

In 1889 a general revision of postal rates took place, as already
explained in Chapter X, and one of these changes affected