Something a little different…

So last night when we were having some trouble with our internet connection, I turned off my computer and sorted through a big envelope of stamps from Great Britain.  I was looking for cancels with a March 4 date on them, and I was also sorting out the Machin Head stamps to separate them from the rest of the stamps in the envelope.  Unfortunately, I didn’t find any March 4 cancellations.  What I did find was a selection of perfins and other cancellations that I thought were interesting.  So, these aren’t March 4 stamps, but heck, this is my blog and I’ll post what I want.  Take a look at the scans and enjoy anyway.  I did.

Looking at the perfins, there were these (where I have information on the perfin markings, it is given, otherwise, I don’t know what they indicate)…

This is either Scott # 159 or 187. The difference in the listings is in the watermark, and on this stamp it’s a little hard to tell what watermark exists (one of these days I’ll get better watermark detection gear).  Regardless, both Scott numbers show the same values in my catalog.  The top perfs are interesting here and make me think that this stamp was used in a coil.  It may have been also cut below the perfs and reperfed with the six holes.  The “CSC” and “22” are from Cook, Son & Co., 22 St. Paul’s Churchyard, London.

Another example of either Scott # 159 or 187, this one with what appear to be complete perfs all around.  “NL” is the two-letter country code for the Netherlands, but since this stamp was issued in the 1910s, it seems pretty unlikely that it stands for that.

Okay, one more of either Scott # 159 or 187.  On this one, the bottom corner of the L and one of the inner holes on the first W are missing, but this perfin reads “WW Ltd” which stands for William Whitely, Ltd.

Scott # 237, issued somewhere from 1937-1939, is the next perfin.

Here’s another with a similar face design as the previous.  But judging by the color specs in my copy of Scott, I’m guessing that this is actually # 262 (ultramarine) rather than # 239 (bright ultramarine); of course, I could be wrong, but since both are valued at less than 50¢ used, I’m not too worried yet.

The next stamp in this selection is Scott # 286, issued May 3, 1951.

So now we move forward to see Queen Elizabeth depicted on a stamp.  The differentiating mark on this stamp is the watermark.  On my simple inspection, I can’t easily tell which watermark is on this stamp, so it could be Scott # 297, 322 or 358.  However, my collecting habits usually lead to me getting the lowest catalogue value stamp, so this is probably not # 297.

Now we get into the Machin Head issues.  This would be Scott # MH7, which as we can see was cancelled in 1970.  The remnant of a second stamp is still attached to the bottom perfs; I wonder if that lower stamp, which was probably also perforated with the same “C CC” markings, is in someone else’s collection?

The next perfin is a block of two Scott # MH22.  This was the only perfin block that I came across in my collection.

The last perfin we’ll look at today is this example of Scott # MH32, which was first issued on February 15, 1971.  The most interesting aspect of this stamp in this selection is that it is the only unused perfin that I found while looking through the packet.

So from perfins, here is the only Great Britain overprint that I found in the packet last night.  This is Scott # 162, issued in 1912 or 1913.  The overprint looks like “Resolved for / Sargeant, Longstaff & Co. / £ ………… / ………… 19…” which makes me think that this was used as a revenue receipt.  From what I can see, Sargeant, Longstaff & Co. was a coal and coke merchant in London.

We’ll end this look at some interesting British stamps with a funny cancellation position…

I had to look at this one twice, but it almost appears as if the queen is wearing a choker!  This is either Scott # MH238 or MH239; I need to learn more about the printing methods to better identify this stamp.  The text of the cancellation reads “Code it!” which is supposed to help the recipient remember to use post codes when addressing materials that are sent via Royal Mail.