Commercial Overprint Society of Great Britain

Vol. 3 No. 7; January 1, 2006

Great Western Railway

by Michael Behm

This is an intriguing item: an overprint that includes a date on a perfin on a revenue stamp. Could this possibly be a commercial overprint?

This question was raised in 1990 in the February and March issues of the Bulletin of the British Commercial Overprint Study Circle regarding similar stamps. Including the stamp illustrated here, three similar overprints have been reported—all on the same issue:

G W.R./Aug. 31, 1876 (diagonal)
G W.R./July. 24th, 1876 (diagonal, different angle)
G.W.R./28th, Feby., 1877 (vertical)

Three different formats, two different sets of fonts...it appears that these are all handstamps, albeit ones that are very similar in quality to pre-printed overprints. Are there any other examples? Does this perfin exist on this issue without an overprint?

The Sloper Records

by Steve Steere

The story starts in late 1989. At the grand old age of 37 I joined the GB Perfin Society, after deciding that I liked stamps with holes in them, was interested in finding out more about them, and wanted to acquire more of them.

At the first London meeting I attended I sat and listened to discussions about finding out new identities and learnt of Sloper's involvement. Being naive as only a new member can, I piped up, "Why doesn't someone ask Sloper's?" This caused some amusement as Sloper's had been a closed shop to all requests for information for many years; many had tried and all had failed. However, I was told that as no one had tried lately, I should have a go.

A few days later, heart in mouth, I made a telephone call, fully expecting a quick put down. However, the person I needed to speak to, Bill Cokayne—the Managing Director—was out, so I left my name and telephone number, and waited.

Now those that are involved in family history research know that occasionally unexpected coincidences happen, and one occurred here. For many years J. Sloper & Co. Ltd. had two men running the company, one was Bill Cokayne who was the hands-on engineer running the shop floor side the business, and the other man who did all the office work was named Steere, my surname! Mr. Steere was the man who had kept the firm's business secrets from the Perfin Society for many years and no doubt would have continued to do so.

When Bill Cokayne saw who had called he immediately thought I was a relative of his colleague—who unfortunately had recently departed this life for a better place—and so rang me back: the ice had started to break! We got chatting and no doubt he thought he was talking to a crackpot—well, you have to be to collect perfins (and overprints!) on little bits of paper. Here fate again was kind to me, as to add credence to my persona I let it be known that I was also a policeman (now retired, thank goodness). This brought back happy memories to Bill of the local boys (police) who used to pop in for a cuppa, and with whom he had a good relationship. With the ice now completely broken, he told me he would think about my request and I was to ring back.

One thing led to another and, in early 1990, four members of the GB Perfin Society and I visited Sloper's at their Tower Royal works in West Hampstead, London. Bill was astounded by the knowledge of the members regarding his work, and we had achieved access at last. We all saw the large books on a shelf above us, but could not see what they contained.

Continued contact paid off and one day Dave Hill and I visited the Works with a camera and lots of film. We were allowed to photograph their current die book that contained over a thousand entries. The book had the customer name, perfin die and also occasional overprints. This indicated the book had been in use over twenty years as overprints died out in 1972, when the tax duty of 2p per invoice, paid for by a postage stamp affixed to the invoice, was abolished. Both perfin dies and overprints examples were on stamp sized labels affixed to the book, with perfins on green labels and overprints on yellow ones.

These many photographs are now stored in the GB Perfin Society library. They predate digital cameras; no alterations have been made to the photos, and the images are not to scale.

Eventually, Bill Cokayne found the going too tough on his own, and so the business of J. Sloper & Co. Ltd. was sold to Checkpoint Security Services, who promptly closed the works and got rid of the staff (as so often happens).

During this process, John Nelson and I visited to negotiate the purchase (by the GB Perfin Society) of items that Checkpoint did not require. We obtained many of the older perfin multi-dies, and were very fortunate to obtain record books relating to post war perfin and overprint use, including customer names, plus the Victorian records for dies made—but not customer information, this had been lost due to bombing of their premises in World War II. The icing on the cake was the original letter (in a frame) from H. M. Postmaster to Joseph Sloper authorising him to perforate GB postage stamps.

The records consist of another book that preceded that first book in the same format, a small book of dies and overprints that Waterlows had ordered through Sloper's, another smaller book containing names, addresses, and dies, two very large ledgers containing customer names, addresses, dies, and overprints with the amounts charged and photographs of all but the first 36 pages of the book that was sent to Checkpoint containing the then current customers.

That is how the story ends: if at first you don't succeed, keep trying. It took forty years and various people having a go, but in the end someone got lucky and it was me. Had we left it a couple more years, Sloper's would have closed and records would have been lost forever.

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