GB : Official Perfins Identified Here.

As the stamp with the "E" perfin has a London WC1 postmark I'd suggest its likely to be the perfin of Evans Brothers Ltd of London WC1.

Hmm, the postmark is only partly visible. Can't tell unfortunately. Thnx anyway!

I hardly dare to ask , but: Any ideas about the L, C and MB perfins?

Hello to all. Could anyone please help me identify those perfins?
I didn't see them listed in previous pages.

In order they are:

(big)D; KS/&Co; G&Co.; (big)CL;

AA/CoLd; OCM; ER/Ld; (big)DT; E&HY;

GHL; DT; B; HCo; (big)LN/E.

Thanks in advance.

Here's what I can find:

D - 18 ? - probably Debenham Ltd, London or Marshall & Snellgrove, London.

KS/&Co - 10,10,14,8.4 - Kleinwort & Sons, Bankers, London

G&Co. - 10,12,8,6 - Gruning & Co, Liverpool

CL - 11,8 - Credit Lyonnais S.A., London

AA/CoLd - 10,10,8,4,7,7 - Alliance Assurance Company Ltd

OCM - 8.7.11 - Oriental Carpet Manufacturers Ltd, London

ER/Ld - 10,12,7,7 - ?

DT - 11.7 - ?

E&HY - 10,13,12,6 - ?

GHL - 10,12,7 - George Henry Lee & Co. Ltd, Liverpool

DT - 9,6 - Daily Telegraph or Davies Turner & Co. Ltd

B - 11 - this matches 18 different companies in my old catalogue!

HCo - 12,8,4 - Hindley & Co. Ltd, London

LN/E ? - 6,10,9 ? - maybe London & North Eastern Railway Co.

Thank you very much nigelc for your quick help ;)

Hello, I did some research too and I found many convincing informations on many of those companies, but i'm still not fully persuaded that "Hindley & Co. Ltd. of London" was HCo. and that G&CO was "Gruning & Co.". The former, because I couldn't find anything about it, and the latter because it is mentioned only as "Huth, Gruning & Co." that already had a HUTH perfin or as "Slaughter, Gruning & Co" that would imply an S at the beginning of the perfin.

I Still have no clues about E&HY and ER/Ld;

...and I have found another unidentified perfin on a King Edward VII. It is: L&P 7,14,10 (the & is the flathead/halfhead one).
Maybe you know anything about this one too

Obviously, I'm very late joining this discussion. I have been a member of this community for a grand total of 7 minutes! I joined specifically because of the "Perfin" topic. I'm retired USAF and also from teaching. I recently decided to start collecting again after a 50-year departure. I've been going through old batches of world-wide stamps that I filed away when I was twelve years old and came upon this huge glut of unsorted British stamps (and several other countries). These would all be from the 60s or earlier. I have several perfins that I'd love to identify. Here are two that perhaps someone might know: "PAC", and "C & A" Also, after pulling out one of each British stamp that I want to keep, I have several hundred duplicates that perhaps someone would like to sort through for their own, or maybe trade. At this point I'd be interested in almost anything. Blessings to you all, and thank you for allowing me to participate. Jack316.

Welcome to Stamp Community Forum, Jack316!

Some perfins were used by more than one company. A picture can sometimes be useful.

PAC is probably Prudential Assurance Company.

THANK YOU! I really appreciate your help. I'm certain pictures would help, but I am seriously Technologically Challenged. What's worse is I'm thinking it may be too late for me to join the information revolution - meaning, you could explain the process step-by-step and I'd still be scratching my head! Thank you again khj for your time and effort on my behalf. jack316

Welcome, jack316, to the forum and specifically to the perfin related sections. It is a fascinating topic and, as you have been already told, some perfin initials have been used by differing companies etc.
If you can describe the PIN COUNT it can help greatly... each letter has a certain amount of pin holes and it can differ from company to company so that a letter C might have 7 pin holes or 8 or whatever and that might assist in identifying. Normal notation works like this...
8,9/7,8,9
this means that there are two letters of 8 and 9 then the other letters of 7, 8 and 9 are under that in a new line. It is important that any pin holes separating the letters are included such as P.A.C. for example.
The stamp is also important as some companies stopped using perfins after a certain time or ceased trading.
Your PAC has already been identified by khj but it is interesting to note that there are TEN known patterns used by that company and, although it is one of the most common GB perfins, a collection can be made of all the PAC patterns as they cover all GB reigns from Victoria to Elizabeth.

Hey, Scotzm. Thank you very much. It's staggering how much knowledge exists within this forum. As I mentioned I'm returning to collecting stamps after a 50-year hiatus. I'm also an avid collector of US coins. It seems to me that stamp collecting has changed graphically since my youth. My old H.E. Harris Ambassador album is pretty much useless. Whereas, I didn't even notice "perfins" in my youth, while going through piles of worldwide issues the other day that I had tucked away when I left the hobby, I noticed about a half dozen perfins among the group. This was probably one of those old packets that were so popular when I was a kid that you could buy 500 worldwide stamps unsorted for a couple of dollars at the dime store. There dozens of duplicates and many stamps were destroyed due to sloppy cutting of envelopes/postcards. Many need to be soaked, etc. Out of the Great Britain group I found probably 3 dozen or so stamps to keep. I sincerely appreciate your help and will look carefully at the number of pinholes and report back. Blessings, jack316

Hi Jack,

As Kim has said, most "PAC" GB perfins are from the Prudential Assurance Company but there was at least one PAC pattern from the Pearl Assurance Company.

"C&A" is probably from the chain of clothing stores that used to have a big presence in UK high streets (or the related Canda Manufacturing). However, "C&A" has also been used by Carter & Aynsley, Hardware Merchants, in London.

Thanks so much Nigel. It appears that you've been drafted as our official UK perfin Go-To guy. I appreciate your willingness to research on my behalf. What was the name of the large clothing company? Also, tangentially, as I was going through these batches, the group from The Netherlands has also got a few perfins, but more interestingly, I found several from that country with postmarks of 1936 - 1940. If I'm correct, that would be around the time of the Nazi occupation of Holland which makes those stamps especially interesting to me. Of special interest were those from Brazil and New Zealand which have an appearance much like our very earliest US issues. The Cuban pre-Castro stamps are very utilitarian in appearance, and those from the USSR have a profoundly militaristic style. In all, it's quite a treasure trove today, whereas when I bought them as a kid they didn't seem all that cool. There are plenty left if anyone has an interest let me know. Blessings, jack316

Seek ID for "AB " on Queen Victoria, Pmk Threadneedle Street

10pins 13pins circa 1902