GB : Official Perfins Identified Here.

Hello everyone,

I havent browsed through entire thread, but I havent found the perfins issuer that I have on this series of stamps. It reads "GW & Co". Obviously commercial company. I am also interested wether marks on the margin are postal printing marks and would like to know what they represent.

Thanks

They're control numbers, and the number itself indicates the year of printing, i.e. 1935. Unusual to find with a perfin, I imagine.

Thanks GeoffHa,

It was unusual to me, to find them unused. I understand that basic purpose of perfins was to prevent misuse and all stamps with perfins I have so far are used off paper.

Perhaps a stamp collector who worked for GH & Co perforated them, or kept them after they were perforated - the norm would have been for them to have the stamp-edging with the control removed, as well as for them to be used.

The letter (in combination with the year) stands for an accounting period. Below those controls is a small number that identifies the cylinder from which the stamps were printed.

It must have been kept by an employee or even a proprietor of the bussines, Fact that only lower values of this series of stamps were used, suggests to me that it was company who didnt post mail to foreign countries. Is there an online ressource - perfin database for this period , that I can search?

Thank you both for help with this.

Could be Gater, Hall and Co. of Burslem, earthenware manufacturers in this period, sometimes using the mark GH&Co. Mostly utilitarian pottery by the looks of it.

In case they used this form of GH & Co, that might just be it. On the other hand G.H. initials are fairly common in UK. I suppose there is more than one company, today, bearing that initials

From 14 May 1923 until 1 May 1940, during which time these stamps were current, the UPU foreign letter (up to 1 oz) rate was prepaid by that blue stamp, the empire letter rate (up to 1 oz) was prepaid by that red-brown stamp.

https://www.gbps.org.uk/information...875-1975.php




If you are a member of the GB Perfin Society, yes. Otherwise, I am afraid you will have to wait until a fellow member with access to a database or catalogue may help out.

If the stamp you show from the back is the 3d stamp, the reason the 4d and higher values are missing, simply, might be that a collector - family member of someone working with the firm or an employee - got the stamps before 2 December 1935.

"If you are a member of the GB Perfin Society, yes. Otherwise, I am afraid you will have to wait until a fellow member with access to a database or catalogue may help out."

Fair enough.

I have no knowledge of GB postage rates, except for early victorian period. This should put things in perspective for me.

Thanks

The stamp shown from the reverse is the same as the one beside it. There are no other values.

I notice however that the stamps that someone has kept are with left margin and control numbering. Maybe it was done in order to have further proof of identity of sent correspondence.

That would not make sense. The company would have paid for every stamp. An unused stamp would not have served as proof of having sent anything. The control number was for bookkeeping purposes by the GPO, not with the buyer.

The most likely explanation an employee was a philatelist or knew a philatelist and asked the administrator for the stamps, probably against payment of the postal value. (Let's, for now, assume that person did not liberate the stamps from the company's safe when no one was looking.)