Used Perfin 2/6 Crown Irish Opt.

A very nice used perfin G and G,2/6 Irish Opt Crown.
Please through more light on it.Also it's CV.

Welcome Mukaram. Nice scan of a nice looking stamp. I can't help with the perfin, but someone here surely will. Generally I don't believe that perfins add catalogue value, though a collector may well pay more for one such as this.

Looks like G for Guinness. See pages 819-820: G1 - Guiness

https://eirephilatelicassoc.org/sit...72_-_109.pdf

The G2 Guiness Perfin (Later format)
http://goscf.com/t/53500&whichpage=2#524854 br /

Might be a 1927 Somerset House overprint (wide setting) in Black. Catalogued (Hibernian) € 48 (2009) fine used. Yours, I am afraid, is far from fine with a parcel post cancellation.

The stamp is of the united Kingdom type known to philatelists as "Seahorses." Issued in 1913, the contract passed from Waterlow to De La Rue, and then to Bradbury, Wilkinson. In 1935, a re-engraving took place. The horizontal lines behind the King's effigy identify it as the original engraving.

Bradbury Wilkinson stamps (put into circulation from December 1918) were overprinted for use in Ireland after Southern Ireland got a provisional government in the run up to autonomy (this one). The overprint translates to "Irish Free State 1922".

Hibernian discerns four printings: Thom, and the government printing works at Dublin Castle (with a narrow year) and Somerset House (a composite printing with narrow and wide dates, and a narrow printing). Yours appears to be the last of those. Overprintings took place in London from 1927 onwards.

2/6 is 2 shillings six pence, equivalent to half a Crown: four Crowns in a Pound. These so-called high values covered mainly parcel rates.

I can confirm it is a perfin used by Arthur Guiness Son & Co Ltd, Dublin, and by its branches in the United Kingdom.



The entry comes from the Perfin Society Publication Perfins of Ireland, currently out of print but a new second edition E version will be available from mid March 2022 to both perfin society members and the public at low cost.

GB Perfins arenot given a price or rarity rating, with nearly 25K different perfins it would be an impossible task. Rough ideas on price can be got from viewing past Perin Society Auctions with prices realised on their website. As there are no other Seahorse perfins reported with the Irish Free State overprint I expect it would fetch a good price in the Perfin Society Auction, but still a lot less than if it didn't have a perfin and sold as a normal stamp.