Initialed Napoleon III 4 Centimes (France Scott 31)

I have a large number of Napoleon III stamps which I believe were collected by one of my great-grandfathers.

Someone initialed "JL" in the lower right-hand corner of some of them, including a few of the 4 centimes stamps shown here. I thought that perhaps "JL" was a stamp dealer who marked them to indicate they were genuine....but there's at least one with my great-grandfather's initials, "TWL".

Does anyone know whether initialing stamps was something stamp collectors did way back in the early 1900's? It seems very odd that someone would deface stamps they collected

Given the color variations, which seem like shades of brown to me even though these stamps are described as "gray", I believe there's a mix of France Scott 31 Types I and II here, although I haven't figured out which is which yet.

One of the "JL stamps"


"TWL's" stamp


Only one of these is initialed "JL"; I included this scan to show the color variations in these stamps.


No initials, but a nice cancel from Gray, which I had no idea was the name of a place in France!

Marking could be for one of a number of reasons: a collector's mark; a dealer's mark (and some were handstamped on the back for free advertising); or an expertiser's mark. I think that expertisers in continental Europe still permanently mark the back of stamps. I shouldn't call it "defacing" myself, although others would.

Thanks, Geoff.

I think I've seen some stamps with initials on the back; I'll start keeping track of those as I sort through the bundles my great-grandfather bought while living and traveling in Europe.