A Few Terms I Need More Information On

Making exceptions where you take an existing stamp and print something over it but do not call it an overprint because some opines surcharge and overprint are mutually exclusive terms is not really contributing to




It is just imposing a personal preference on a beginner, if it is a beginner to start with.

Also, if you insist on limiting the word 'surcharge' to changing the value: sur + charge means extra charge, not changing the charge. In the strict English sense of a word that is the French for 'overprint' you could only apply it to increasing the value and not lowering the value.

And according to his profile, OP is a subject of H.M. the King, not a resident of the U.S.A.

"Also, if you insist on limiting the word 'surcharge' to changing the value: sur + charge means extra charge, not changing the charge."

And realistically, how often was the value of a stamp lowered rather than raised? I am sure that it happened, but not remotely as often. And I am not imposing anything, I am simply saying that having one term for each makes it clearer what has occurred. There is a difference in the effect which should be noted.

Without conducting a detailed survey, I'd say that, in general, values tend to be lowered, which makes sense. Increasing the value through an overprint invites postal forgery.

The conditions which tended to exist when surcharges were applied probably made the idea of any large scale postal forgery impractical at the time. Both overprints and surcharges tend to have occurred in more troubled times, when people had more important things to worry about.

I agree with GeoffHa that it is more common to see a lower than higher value after overprinting/surcharging for the reasons he gave.
In the case of those stamps overprinted/surcharged for use at British post offices abroad, the change was in the denomination, not in the postal fee, as those were UPU equivalents of the British currency.

The Dutch ones date to the roaring 20s, certainly before 1930. We had no World War I.
The British ones for the agencies came about in peace time, except for the Levant or MEF (etc) ones that came about after a conflict), or even date to the 1950s (Gulf states).

In another thread some time time ago I tried but got push-back for attempting to spilt hairs between two similar terms:

Surcharge: an increase (or infrequent decrease) to the original value of a stamp while retaining the original face value and doing a mathematical process to it to arrive at a new face value. (As an example from outside philately, if your electic bill has a "surcharge" of some sort, they certainly retain the original amount and add to it.)

Revalue: an invalidation of the original face value and replacement with a new value unrelated to the original. (Eggs are a different price at the store today.)

Add: The United Postal Stationery Society's catalog draws this distinction, but Scott is far more sloppy in using precise terminology. And use of proper/precise terminology is very important at the ehxibiting level.

I think, here, we are at the stage 'if surcharge is not a synonym for an overprint, does an overprint encompass a surcharge.'

I am tempted to state that if there is not an agreement on that surcharge means overprint, any surcharge applied by way of overprinting a stamp with a new value is still an overprint as that is what you are doing.

In my opinion, yes. A surcharge is a specific type of overprint where currency/denomination is changed. There are other types of overprints, for example commemorative and political (e.g. a new country or territory name).

They are still two different things designed for two different purposes, therefore it is incorrect to use the same term to describe them. In that sense it is no different from deciding to call both engraved stamps and offset lithography stamps the same, since they are both printed. No collector would do that. They should not do this either.

With all due respect revcollector, you are just plain wrong.

Think about it this way: overprinting is a printing process, which creates the result of surcharges, changes of use, changes in country, etc.
A surcharge is just a specific type (subset) of the broad category overprinted stamps.

Add: and particularly to U.S. oriented collectors.

I'll let Yvert and Maury know they're in error.

I agree with the majority here that the term overprint covers any scenario where something is printed over an existing stamp.

They can then be broken down into the many and varied types of overprints be it change in face value, change in use (eg OFFICIAL), renamed country, occupation of another country etc etc.

So in essence you are telling me that none of these differences actually matter, unlike ANY other area of philately, where differences matter a great deal.

I am sure it's not the first time, no catalog is perfect. They would ignore you, of course.

I looked up Surcharge in my copy of "Fundamentals of Philately" by L.N. Williams. The description goes on for a third of a page but the first sentence provides the gist: "The term used to designate an overprint that alters or confirms the face value of a stamp."

Works for me.