Lot #725: Vintage 1942 Ontario Postcard - 1925 "Champlain Monument, Orillia" (Now Removed!) - Photogelatine Engraving Co. - 2¢ "George VI Mufti" stamp

One Vintage 1942 Ontario Canada Postcard, unused, showing "Commerce Group, Champlain Monument, Orillia, Ontario, Canada" published by the Photogelatine Engraving Co. (PECO) of Toronto. Includes a cancelled 1937 two-cent brown "King George VI Mufti" stamp (so named because the King is shown in a suit rather than military uniform)., postmarked in Goderich, Ontario in August 1942. The "mismatch" between the subject (Orillia) and the postmark (Goderich) is very common for the era—souvenirs were often bought on one leg of a trip and mailed from another. In 1942, the Photogelatine Engraving Co. (PECO) of Toronto was one of the few Canadian firms still maintaining high-quality photogelatine production during the constraints of World War II. PECO was a dominant force in the Canadian postcard market from the 1920s through the 1950s, specializing in the collotype (or photogelatine) process a process that sat somewhere between a high-end print and a real photograph. This was a sophisticated, ink-based printing method that did not use the standard "dots" (halftones) found in newspapers. The Champlain Monument in Orillia’s Couchiching Beach Park was unveiled in 1925 to mark the 300th anniversary of Samuel de Champlain’s arrival in the region. The monument featured several bronze groups around the central figure of Champlain. The "Commerce Group" featured a fur trader and a Jesuit priest, representing the economic and religious expansion into the interior. This specific monument later became a point of significant heritage debate respecting its representation of Indigenous and colonial figures, and was ultimately removed for "re-imagining" in 2017. This card serves as a unique visual record of the no-longer existing original 1925 configuration. Dimensions: 9 mm x 14 mm Pickup category timeslot {A}