Canada Post offers Star Trek prestige booklet, more in May 5 set

By Michael Baadke

Canada Post issued its new Star Trek 50th anniversary set May 5, with stamps and first-day covers in almost every imaginable format, including a prestige booklet.

The set offers commemorative stamps honoring five characters from the original 1966 television series, plus two stamps showing the starship Enterprise and a Klingon D7-class battle cruiser.

And revealed for the first time on the day of issue, the set also includes two additional stamps utilizing lenticular printing, “a method that makes images appear in motion when viewed from different angles,” according to Canada Post.

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The lenticular stamps are denominated $5 each, and are offered in a souvenir sheet of two.

The scenes on the lenticular stamps feature the transporter from the Enterprise on one, and a glimpse of the popular television episode The City on the Edge of Forever on another.

“Stamp designer Kosta Tsetsekas, of Vancouver-based Signals Design Group, saw lenticular as an opportunity to recognize both the show’s futuristic vision and the special effects that brought it to life,” according to Canada Post.

The lenticular souvenir sheet selvage pictures the Enterprise in orbit above a planet. The back side includes informational text.

Commemorative stamps in the set honor actors William Shatner as Capt. James T. Kirk, Leonard Nimoy as Commander Spock, James Doohan as Chief Engineer Montgomery “Scotty” Scott, DeForest Kelly as Dr. Leonard McCoy, and John Colicos as Klingon Commander Kor, the first Klingon character ever shown on Star Trek, from the 1967 television episode Errand of Mercy.

The Kor stamp and the Klingon battle cruiser stamp were unveiled April 28 during a panel presentation on Conversational Klingon taking place at the Calgary Comic and Entertainment Expo.

Colicos was born in Toronto, Ontario. Shatner and Doohan were also born in Canada. Of the five actors featured, only Shatner, who is 85, is still living.

The stamps showing the Enterprise and the Klingon ship will be issued alternating in a single coil roll of 50 stamps. Collectors desiring a smaller quantity will be able to purchase coil strips of four or 10.

In addition, a souvenir sheet of two stamps showing the same designs of the two starships is being offered by Canada Post.

The souvenir sheet selvage pictures the Enterprise in action, firing its phasers.

The coil stamps and the pair in the souvenir sheet are all permanent-rate stamps paying the current 85¢ (Canadian) domestic letter rate.

The coil stamps are self-adhesive, and the souvenir sheet stamps are perforated with moisture-activated adhesive.

The five commemoratives will be sold as permanent-rate self-adhesive stamps in booklets of 10 with a cover design showing the five characters and the Enterprise in orbit.

Also available will be a pane of five perforated stamps with a large selvage area showing a design similar to the booklet cover.

Unlike the booklet stamps, the perforated stamps in the pane of five have moisture-activated adhesive and come in various denominations: the Kirk stamp is permanent rate, while the other stamps are $2.50 (Spock), $1.20 (McCoy), $1.80 (Scotty) and $1 (Kor).

The Star Trek prestige booklet from Canada Post contains 15 perforated stamps; the commemoratives are denominated the same as the perforated stamps in the pane of five. The prestige booklet does not contain the lenticular stamps.

There are five stamp panes in the booklet: the first contains four Kirk stamps; the second has one each of the Spock, McCoy, and Scotty stamps; the third has a single Kor stamp; the fourth has one each of all five character stamps; and the fifth has one each of the two space vessel stamps.

The prestige booklet sells for $19.95 (Canadian).

Each pane in the booklet shows different full color scenes from the television series and includes text describing the action in English and in French.

Canada Post has printed 200,000 prestige booklets.

Collectors can also obtain uncut press sheets of the lenticular stamps containing 12 souvenir sheets (2,000 produced), and a press sheet containing six of the five-stamp panes from the prestige booklet (10,000 produced).

Also available are sets of first-day covers and picture postal cards.

The eight first-day covers include the seven permanent-rate stamps with full-color photo illustrations as cachets, plus the lenticular stamp souvenir sheet. The first-day covers also can be ordered individually.

The covers are postmarked in the following cities: Kirk in Montreal, Quebec; Spock in Vulcan, Alberta; Scotty in Vancouver, British Columbia; McCoy in Vulcan; Kor in Toronto, Ontario; the lenticular souvenir sheet, the Klingon ship and the Enterprise first-day covers each in Vulcan.

The five picture postal cards are franked with imprinted versions of the Kirk, Spock, Scotty, and McCoy stamps, plus one franked with an imprinted Enterprise stamp.

On the picture side of each postal card are three images from one popular episode of the Star Trek original series: The Trouble with Tribbles, A Piece of the Action, Amok Time, Mirror Mirror, and The City on the Edge of Forever.

The booklet of 10 self-adhesive stamps is Canada Post product No. 414008111, the coil of 50 is 404015117, the souvenir sheet of two lenticular stamps is 404017145, the souvenir sheet of two vessel stamps is 404015145, the pane of five character stamps is 404014107, the prestige booklet is 414014111, the lenticular stamp uncut press sheet is 404017149, the character uncut press sheet is 404014149, the set of eight first-day covers is 414013131, and the set of five postal cards is 262452.

Canada Post stamp products are available on the Canada Post's website. Stamps and FDCs are available by mail order from Canada Post Customer Service, Box 90022, 2701 Riverside Drive, Ottawa, ON K1V 1J8 Canada; or by telephone from the United States and Canada at 800-565-4362, and from other countries at 902-863-6550.

Canada’s stamps and stamp products are also available from many new-issue stamp dealers, and from Canada Post’s agent in the United States: Interpost, Box 420, Hewlett, NY 11557. 

More on the 50th Anniversary set:

Want first-day covers for Canada Post’s Star Trek stamps? Here’s how!

Monday Morning Brief: New stamp subjects revealed

Klingons captured on Canada’s May 5 Star Trek set