US Perfins On Precancels

In reading SCF posts, it seems that both precancels and perfins (which had been shunned by collectors for years) are now being considered a collectible once again.

From my childhood days, I was always told that precancels and perfins devalued a stamp to being virtually worthless, but as I grew older and more into this speciality, it has rekindled my interest.

Anyway, is there any sort of resource detailing the initials used on the various perfins? Being from the New England area, I can get some of the big ones such as:

Boston, MA precancel with perfin FNB = First National Bank
Lynn, MA precancel with perfin GE = General Electric
Boston, MA precancel with perfin BECo. = Boston Edison Company
Rochester, NY precancel with perfin EKCo. = Eastman Kodak Company

Then there are the railroads which typically end in "RR" ... but that's about all I know.

As perfins were primarily intended as a security measure, was the post office involved in providing a device to a company to perfin their stamps? Did the post office do it for them? Or did each company merely purchase a device on their own from a private vendor (which would make the types of perfins virtually limitless)?

It's never going to be a rich man's speciality, but it sure makes for an interesting area of collecting (to me anyway).

There are lots of Perfin topics on here SCF.
Search for perfin.

Also see
http://www.perfins.org/

In the UK
http://www.angelfire.com/pr/perfinsoc/

In Canada
http://www.rpsc.org/Library/perfins...fficials.htm

In Australia
http://www.philatel2.com/jubilee/id213.htm

Thanks. Since I only have U.S. perfins, the perfins.org website is most relevant. I think they have a lot of good information. But it's a study that I have to take some time with.

I like the perfins and precancels together on a stamp, because based on the precancel it would make it a lot easier to identify the company that is represented by the perfins in a particular location.

Thought I'd post this as an example of the precancelled perfins in my collection. In this case, it's easy. All of the precancels are Rochester, NY and all of the perfins are EKC, which means they all are from the Eastman Kodak Company.



Terrible lack of centering though...but if you look at them closely, I dare say some of the stamps came from the same sheet as you can almost match up a few of the stamps that are off-center.

That's nice. I have a strange fondness for the misperfed stamp. Quite appealing to me. Nice to see some all together.