Philatelic Friday: Trefflé Berthiaume

1984 Canada

I love the design of these stamps of Trefflé Berthiaume from my box. I had no idea who he was, but all the text running over his portrait was mesmerizing. Turns out he was a Canadian typographer, newspaperman, and politician, and this stamp marks the 100th anniversary of La Presse, a newspaper he rescued in 1889 and used to champion many social causes. But apparently the stamp has some infamy of its own--I saw it referred to as "the monkey-in-the-hat stamp" because when it's turned upside down, there seems to be a small monkey in the hat. I'll leave that up to you.