Gallery

 

Part 1 - An Introduction to Danzig Perfins

Information for this article comes from four sources: The Perfins Club (USA), the Arbeitsgenieinschaft Lochungen im BDPh e.V. (a study group in Germany concerned with perfins), the Arbeitsgemeinschaft Danzig (a study group in Germany concerned with all phases of Danzig philately), and an article by Aleksander Sekowski entitled, “Catalogue of Firms Initials Perfor ated on Postage Stamps Used on Polish Territories of 1918-1939.”

The Arge Lochungen study group has created a handbook of all known German perfins. The official title is “KATALOG der deutschen Firmenl ochungen”, authored by Dr. Hans Hillinan, Alfred Wirth and Willem Smetsers. The most current information from this classic work will be extracted for Danzig and combined with information published by the Arge Danzig study group primarily cOncerned with Danzig. The Arge Danzig information, I believe, is the research of the late Danzig expertizer Karl Kniep. The Perfins Club’s Floyd A, Walker is their foreign catalog editor. Finally, the source of the Polish infonnation is a translation by Rudolf Szczurek from the “PoIski Przeglad Filatelistyczny” (Polish Philatelie Review) of 1993.

Once before I wrote an article concerning perfins for the Germany Philat elic Society’s 40th Anniversary Anthology; and attempted to explain the ArGe Lochungen method of describing peruins. There have been some “fine tuning” to their system since 1989 and this article represents an opportunity to redefine the ArGe Lochungen system more coi-rectly than in the past. When an import ant philatelic word is used, it will be followed by the German translation. An example is perfmn (Locliungen).

It is believed that there were Gennan perfins in use before the unification of Germany in 1870. The earliest date which can be documented is June 2, 1876. (M. Ki nkel) Circular 59 ciii it led “Pos(ordiiiiiig iii!! A iisJiiliriingsbesliiiimiingeii. is part of the 1 892 issue of Allgeiiieii,eii Dieiisaiismveisiiiig (General Instruction for Postal Employees) Part V, Section I, Executive Order 49 (II). The publicat ion is concerned with stamps purchased from the post office by firms and individuals who wish to identify their property by perforating the stamps in the form of letters. They said altered stamps can be used in regular postage office traffic as long as they can be easily recognized ‘as genuine and unused.

It is important to recognize the review of Willem A. Smetsers of The Netherlands for his review and addition of information unavailable to the author. Without his help this article would be repleat with errors.

 

Danzig Report Vol. 1 - Nr. 102 - January - February - March - 1999, Page 21.