philately Philately (; ) is the study of postage stamps and postal history. It also refers to the collection and appreciation of stamps and other philatelic products. Philately involves more than just stamp collecting or the study of postage; it is poss ...

, a perfin is a stamp that has had initials or a name perforated across it to discourage theft. The name is a contraction of perforated initials or perforated insignia. They are also sometimes called ''SPIFS'' (Stamps Perforated with Initials of Firms and Societies).

History

Great Britain was the first country to use perfins, beginning in 1868. The practice spread quickly to Belgium (1872); Denmark, France, Germany and Switzerland (1876); and Austria (1877); the U.S. finally allowed perfins in 1908. In Britain unused postage stamps could be redeemed for cash at the post office. By agreement with postal authorities, a perfin stamp on a letter could be used only by the owner of the perfin. Therefore, a stolen perforated stamp would be of no value to the unauthorized bearer. Thus the use of perfins gave organizations better security over their postage. The demise of the perfin came about by the widespread use of postage meter machines which obviated the need for perfins.

Officially prepared perfins

A number of countries have perforated stamps to denote

official mail Official mail is mail sent from, or by, an authorized department of government, governmental agency or international organizationHorning (1970), pp. 97–98 and normally has some indication that it is official; a certifying cachet, return address ...

. Denmark punctured stamps for use by the

Danish Home Guard The Danish Home Guard ( da, Hjemmeværnet) (HJV) is the fourth service of the Danish military. It was formerly concerned only with the defence of Danish territory, but since 2008, it has also supported the Danish military efforts in Afghanistan ...

. The United States has punctured stamps for use by various Federal organisations and Australian states such as Victoria and Queensland used perfins widely on their stamps.

Collecting perfins

Formerly considered damaged and not worth collecting, perforated postage stamps are now highly sought after by specialist collectors. It is often difficult to identify the originating uses of individual perfins because there are usually no identifying features; for instance the Kodak company used a simple K as their perfin, but on its own a stamp perforated K could have been used by several other users. A ''K'' perfin still affixed to a

cover Cover or covers may refer to: Packaging * Another name for a lid * Cover (philately), generic term for envelope or package * Album cover, the front of the packaging * Book cover or magazine cover ** Book design ** Back cover copy, part of co ...

that has some company identifying feature, like the company name, address, or even a

postmark A postmark is a postal marking made on an envelope, parcel, postcard or the like, indicating the place, date and time that the item was delivered into the care of a postal service, or sometimes indicating where and when received or in transit. ...

or cancellation of a town where the company had offices, enhances such a perfin. Note that the block of 12 stamps illustrated on the right includes two copies of the highly sought-after erroneous 5-cent denomination instead of 2 cents.

Postal stationery

In addition to stamps,

postal stationery A piece of postal stationery is a stationery item, such as a stamped envelope, letter sheet, postal card, lettercard, aerogram or wrapper, with an imprinted stamp or inscription indicating that a specific rate of postage or related servi ...

envelopes,

postcard A postcard or post card is a piece of thick paper or thin cardboard, typically rectangular, intended for writing and mailing without an envelope. Non-rectangular shapes may also be used but are rare. There are novelty exceptions, such as wood ...

s, and

newspaper wrapper In philately a wrapper is a form of postal stationery which pays the cost of the delivery of a newspaper or a periodical. The wrapper is a sheet of paper, large enough to wrap around a folded or rolled newspaper and with an imprinted stamp to pay ...

s were perfinned.

Perfinned postal orders

Perfinned British postal orders were used to pay out winning bets on the

football Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kicking a ball to score a goal. Unqualified, the word ''football'' normally means the form of football that is the most popular where the word is used. Sports commonly c ...

pools and these

postal order A postal order or postal note is a type of money order usually intended for sending money through the mail. It is purchased at a post office and is payable at another post office to the named recipient. A fee for the service, known as poundage, ...

s are very sought after by collectors.

Specimen stamps

Specimen stamp A specimen stamp is a postage stamp or postal stationery indicium sent to postmasters and postal administrations so that they are able to identify valid stamps and to avoid forgeries. The usual method of invalidating the stamps is either overp ...

s have often been perfinned with the word ''specimen'' to denote their status.

Reply coupons

International reply coupon An international reply coupon (IRC) is a coupon that can be exchanged for one or more postage stamps representing the minimum postage for an unregistered priority airmail letter of up to twenty grams sent to another Universal Postal Union (UPU) m ...

s have been issued by the Channel Island of Jersey in which the country is identified by the letters 'JE' perfinned into the coupon.Stephen Tauber, ''Jersey Reply Coupons'', The Perfins Bulletin, Vol. 71, No. 2, p. 37 (Mar/Apr 2017)

References

Clubs

German Perfin Association
- In German
The Perfins Club
- United States based perfin society
The Perfin Society
- Great Britain based perfin society

External links

{{commons category, Perfins
Canadian Perfins of the Victorian Era
— In Italian and English
Perfin stamps of Australia.
Philatelic terminology