Kershaw, Kenneth A. (2006). Plating Studies on Prince Edward Island Stamps: I. The Two Pence Issue — Scott #1 and #5.

In Plating Studies on Prince Edward Island Stamps I. The Two Pence Issue – Scott #1 and #5 Ken Kershaw continues his phenomenal output of plating information and new discoveries, expanding his work beyond the plating of Canada’s Half Cent Maple Leaf and Christmas Map Stamps to the Pence issues of Prince Edward Island. As outlined in an article in the Second Quarter 2006 issue of BNA Topics, while working on the Two Pence stamp Ken discovered that a major variety, previously believed to be constant, did not in fact appear in all sheets. In the process he discovered a significant previously unreported variety in the adjacent stamp. This newest book is the first of at least five Ken plans for the PEI Pence issues. Two more are very near completion, and the fourth is well along. He promises that in the next volume he will reveal a most interesting discovery relating to the very structure of the plate material and how this affects the stamps printed from the plates. Ken Kershaw was born in England and became fascinated by plants at an early age. He graduated from Manchester University with a B Sc degree in Botany in 1952. After military service he went on to a Ph. D.degree working on pattern in vegetation, and was appointed lecturer in Plant Ecology at Imperial College London in 1957. He was seconded to Ahmadu Bello University in northern Nigeria for two years. On his return to Imperial College he became involved with lichen ecology, particularly in alpine and arctic areas, in addition to his work on computer modeling and data analysis. He obtained his D Sc in 1965 and was appointed Professor at McMaster University, Hamilton in 1969. His research was then devoted heavily to the ecology of the Canadian low arctic and northern boreal forest areas, and in 1982 he was elected a fellow of the Royal Society of Canada. He is the author of several university texts.Ken’s passion for wild plants has been transferred to Canadian philately. He sees his plating work simply as the “taxonomy of bits of paper” and after a lifetime of plant taxonomy finds it a fairly straightforward and fascinating hobby.