Swiss Perfin Stamp Of 1882

hello all. hope I have got this right, can someone tell me why the perfin is upsidedown . the perfin is from the town of saint gallen , from the firm of swiss volksbank. that is all I know. cheers ken.

It is down to how the stamp was put into the perforator.

You can have 8 positions

Right way up, upside down. sideways to the left, sideways to the right.(gives 4x)

Seen from the front of the stamp and from the back of the stamp.(gives 2x)
2x 4 total 8.

It however is rare to find more then 2/3 positions of a certain firm.

I once found all 8 postions of the same perfin on Dutch stamps send by a large factory, The only set of 8 I have ever seen.

Johan

The 8 Possible Orientations
Image Author : Makielb US

Sometimes sheets of stamps were folded to fit into the perforating device, which will give you at least two orientations, on the same sheet.

hello. johan, rod222, cjd. thanks for the replies.rod222 like the demonstration showing the positions of the perforations, once again thank you. cheers ken

If there was a hand punching machine in use, and the punching guy had some beers for lunch, there could be endless different positions, and double or even more perforations on one single stamp.

I have a collection of aprox. 30000 worldwide perfins (15000 Austrian ones), but I never take any notice of the punching orientation. I once had a talk with the editor of the new Austrian catalog, and he agreed with me.