GB Perfins

Hello again.2! This question is about perfins (?) if that's what these are. From left to right they are: JW & Co., SJ & Co., and EPM Co. How were they used? Do they add or subtract value? Thanks very much, Leif

The Perfin Society is a very good place to research your perfins...for indeed they are perfins.
http://www.angelfire.com/pr/perfinsoc/index.html

How were they used?... companies would either do it themselves (buy a stamping machine) or get a specialized company to do it for them. The perfins were identifiable with the company so they could track any misuse by employees etc.

Do they add or subtract value?... yes and no. Many people collect them and some are rare (do research) so are worth more. Some are very common ((PAC for instance) and are worth very little in monetary terms but are interesting as you can collect PAC perfins used in the times of all GB reining reigning monarchs from Victoria onwards.

Thanks Scotzm - so in general will a perfin example be of lesser value than a non-perfin example? ie: will a PAC automatically reduce the value of the stamp? Thanks!

In general, a perfin will seriously decrease value. I collect British perfins in a casual way. From what I can tell, if there are scarce ones, they do not carry a significant dollar premium. For US perfins, and some other countries, scarce perfins on common stamps can bring hundreds of dollars. PAC will almost always reduce value, almost always from nil to under-nil!

The information I have is for the middle perfin only - SJ/&Co was used by Samuel Jones & Co. Ltd. I do not have information on the other two, sorry.

Chimo

Bujutsu

Hi Leif,

There are a few candidates for the JW/&Co perfin.

Can you give us the pin counts (or hole counts) for each letter? I can't make them out from the scan.

Candidates include:

- J. Wippell & Co. Ltd
- J. Wagner & Co.
- James Watson & Co. Ltd

Can you read the placename on the postmark? That's often a good clue.

All the best,

The rule of thumb is:
A) If it is a very cheap common stamp, the perfin will increase its value a little;
B) If it is a scarce, expensive stamp, the perfin will decrease its value a lot.

Actually that's not as bad as it sounds because firms perfined mainly very common low-denomination stamps - because that was what they were using for their everyday correspondence. So most of the time you will be in situation A). But remember that the Law of Sod shall apply throughout!

7/14/12/8/6
I collect mint stamps so am not good at cancellations - this one has nothing I can recognize. Thanks for the input, Leif

EPM Co is Eastman Photographic Materials, London, used 1890-1897