Affordable Nova Scotia 1860-63 Queen Victoria stamps

Stamp Market Tips by Henry Gitner and Rick Miller

Nova Scotia is one of 13 Canadian provinces and territories. It is not quite an island, being connected to the North American mainland by the Isthmus of Chignecto.

One of the three Maritime provinces of Canada, its land area of 21,345 square miles includes about 3,800 small islands in the surrounding waters, notably Cape Breton Island and Sable Island.

The first known human inhabitants were the Kwedechk tribe. In pre-Columbian times, an Algonquin tribe, the Micmac, arrived from the west. Over many long years of warfare and bloodshed, the Micmac displaced and exterminated the Kwedechk.

French settlers arrived in 1604 and mostly lived in peace with the Micmac.

The French named the colony Acadia. It was the scene of much of the fighting in the French and British imperial wars of the 17th and 18th centuries. The British eventually won and received the land in the Treaty of Utrecht in 1713, renaming it Nova Scotia (New Scotland).

During the Seven Years’ War (1754-63), known in America as the French and Indian War, the British expelled the French population of Nova Scotia. Those who settled in French Louisiana became the ancestors of the Cajuns.

The expulsion of the Acadians is the setting of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s epic 1847 poem Evangeline, a Tale of Arcadie.

After the American Revolutionary War, more than 30,000 Loyalists (Americans loyal to the British) settled in Nova Scotia.

In 1848, Nova Scotia became the first Canadian colony to attain responsible self-government. Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and the Province of Canada (Ontario and Quebec) formed the Canadian Confederation on July 1, 1867.

Nova Scotia issued its first stamps in 1851. Its stamps were superseded by those of the Dominion of Canada in 1868.

Nova Scotia issued 13 stamps that are listed with major numbers in the Scott catalog. The first seven stamps issued during 1851-57 (Scott 1-7) are quite pricey, especially in unused, original gum condition.

However, the set of six classically designed Queen Victoria stamps issued from 1860 to 1863 (Scott 8-13) are within the reach of most collectors. Only the 5¢ blue (10) is relatively expensive, with a Scott catalog value of $425 in unused, original gum condition.

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