Perfins

and the frame with lanterns, little railroad track, pick and spade,
railroad crossing signals. Just super stuff.

The author has passed away, and comments include
the "good sense" to keep intact.

How could you <even> consider breaking up
something like that!
It belongs in a Philatelic museum, to be kept forever.
..or until the sun becomes a red giant.

Perfins are a pretty cool collectible. Can one find out what business made the perfin or is it just to difficult?

I collect perfins, although like many other posts, the names associated with the perfins often elude me. I go a step further and try to concentrate on precanceled perfins, because at least it narrows down the perfin to a specific city or town.

Four that I have which I particularly like are:



Obviously, #2 is U.S. Marine Corps and #4 is precanceled Rochester, NY which means EKC is probably Eastman Kodak Company. (Note: I have since understood that USMC may represent United Shoe Manufacturing Corp. ... does anyone know for sure?)

The other two (#1 and #3) fancier perfins I haven't been able to identify ... #1 (the encircled "B") is not a precancel although #3 (the "T" in a pentagon) is a precancel from Toledo, Ohio, so it probably has something to do with city government.

Mark, Perfin ID's are a lucky dip,
Catalogues are expensive
(Australia perfins, private and commercial are $70 each)

I have a German LSt , yours appears St

In future you will need to have a higher resolution scan
to determine the correct perfin.
Your scan is just passable.

A Google search yielded an interesting result. There is actually a Perfin Society in the UK which "aims to record all perfins on GB stamps, their period of use and identity of the user" - quoted from the Philatelic Database which also seems to be an interesting site. The Perfin Society has a links page which may be of use:
http://www.angelfire.com/pr/perfins...s/links.html

The Philatelic Database home page is
http://www.philatelicdatabase.com/
Note the search box in the top right hand corner.

Some more links:

History of perfins
http://www.essortment.com/all/colle...osta_pbr.htm

More perfin links:
http://www.perfins.org/Links.htm

Perfin Club Catalogues (for sale with prices)
http://www.perfins.org/Publications.htm

This site shows 15 German perfins. It is in German and Czech I believe. Navigation controls at the bottom of the page. Click on the ">" to go to the next page. I don't know if yours is there Mark.
http://www.japhila.cz/hof/0012/index0012_02.htm

yeah, I should have put a black background behind the stamp in my scanner. sorry.

Anyone know anything about this AL perfin on a 3 pfennig German?

Sorry, but I don't know anything about foreign perfins.

Just to keep these links together though, I recently posted some information about perfins on NY precancels and was given a wealth of information on this link that may be helpful to others:

https://goscf.com/t/11655

I borrowed the US perfins and precanceled-perfins catalogs recently. I was amazed at the 3 binders I brought home. I have not had much time to peruse them for more than a few minutes at a time.

Hi Jeff, The postmark is DÜLMEN in North Rhine-Westphalia.

Thank you Nigel, the AL doesn't go with the Dulmen does it? Just checked out Dulmen, kind of a neat place!

Hi Jeff, Most perfins were used by businesses on their outgoing post so a postmark is usually a a good starting point for identifying an unknown perfin.

I found another AL perfin on the internet just now on a pair of German stamps and they also had a DÜLMEN postmark. There was probably a business in the town with the initials AL.

Here is another I have not identified yet and I have no idea what the GF perfin is.

Hi Jeff, The postmark is LEIPZIG so googling with this and GF and perfin gave me the name of Leipzig bookseller Gustav Fock.