jthurd

03 Mar 2025
11:03:35pm

First, does anyone have any leads on freely accessible catalogues or handbooks identifying entities issuing perfins? My specific interest at the moment is perfins from Great Britain, but I am curious to discover available resources in general.

At this moment, I am seeking to figure out what M V Co represents.

Second, hitherto I assumed that when a sheet of stamps had been "perfined", all the stamps in the given sheet would have the perfins oriented in the same direction. I have seen the examples of the same basic stamp with perfins in different orientations, i.e. up, down, right, and left, and have a few examples of such among Canadian official perfins O H M S. My understanding was that if different orientations of the perfins are found, it is as a result of the sheet having been fed into the device doing the "perfining" in different orientations, i.e. up or down or right or left, with the result that all stamps in the sheet would show the same orientation of the perfin holes. I have examined very few pairs or blocks, but those which I have (both Canadian O H M S and private entities and Great Britain entities) all have the same orientation of the perfin holes on each stamp of the multiple. Today, however, I have come across this M V Co perfin in a block of four, with the orientation of the perfin holes appearing to be a reverse mirror image on the right and left halves of the block. How might this have come to be?

I have attached a scan of the reverse of the block.

Comments? Any answers to my questions will be gratefully received.

JTH

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re: Perfin identification: Two questions

Differing orientations can also be caused by the sheets being folded in half or even quartered and then perfined. It all depended on which member of staff in the companies that used the machine.

The Perfin Society at

https://perfinsoc.org.uk/

Is a useful site for some information and catalogues may be purchased.

My 1993 copy of Tomkins Catalogue of Identified GB Perfins gives M.V Co. was used by a possible three companies from George V onwards.

Metropolitan Vickers Co Ltd
or
Associated Electrical Industries, Manchester
or
AEI (Postmarked Motherwell & Wishaw)

 
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JClouseau

05 Mar 2025
02:00:11pm

re: Perfin identification: Two questions

I'm interested in these perfins, only noticed them recently on a stamp parusal.

Found this free for view and/or download:
Catalogue of Official Perfins - Great Britain Philatelic Society 1967
Perfins by Nigel Gooding
Shropshire Perfins


(archive.org is a great first-stop for older reference material)

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