Stamp Security Devices ~ Burelage V Moire.

Here's my question about these- maybe it's just modern times with the posts not giving a damn whether the stamps are cancelled or not/ letters paid in full, but what is the point of all these security devices? I mean, did the postman actually check each stamp to see if it was real or???

Possibly to make it more difficult to reproduce
by a forger.
Easier to recognise a forgery (usually by philatelists)
Having it more difficult to reproduce, narrows
the suspects I should say.

Sometimes stamps have been stolen, so the remaining stocks
are overprinted with burelage to make them identifiable
from stolen stock.

Somewhat akin to a digital watermark, so people cannot
light finger stamp images. (It's not foolproof)

This is particularly the case with stamps of high value or stamps for which there would be a large and liquid secondary market.

Stamps are "accountable paper" which means that everyone from the window clerk (who has to balance his or her drawer at the end of the shift), to the postmaster, to the prime minister, cares about an accurate count. Stolen stamps are stolen services, and back in the day, a stamp represented some degree of effort for a government to backstop.

An interesting example is the overprinting of the KGV British Honduras stamps during World War I. The trip from England to British Honduras was perilous, and the stamps were overprinted with a moire pattern, so that they could be immediately demonetized if they fell into German hands on the trip across the Atlantic.

Examples of the British Honduras stamps appear a few different places on SCF, but here is one thread:

https://goscf.com/t/7234

Here is a Netherlands Health Insurance revenue, 40c red over blue underprint, apparently paying a weekly rate for health insurance, and issued in 1924:




A few different explanations of these appear on the web; if someone has a more-thorough explanation of these, please share.

The words in the frame are Rentezegel and Loonklasse, for ease of finding this again using Search.

That's the trick, put a stamp "fingerprint" in the text
for reference.
I have been doing that in my database.

'Rentezegel' means literally translated 'rent stamp' but I don't think it has anything to do with rent as we know it. 'Loonklasse III' stands for 'wage class III'. I can vaguely remember from my youth in the Netherlands that every worker has to buy 'plakzegels' that are put on a form.
When you retire this is proof that you have been paying into the system and that you can now draw your retirement.
Unlike our system here, the money you pay in is yours. When I decided to emigrate to the States back in the sixties, it was a great surprise to me when I received a cheque from the Dutch governement for the full amount paid in plus interest!
I do not know much about these 'plakzegels', but the example above is most likely from before WW II.

I believe mine is 1924, but am always looking for better information...

Here is a Bosnian revenue with an interesting background design: