Great Britain Private Company Overprint

Does anyone know whether this overprint was actually sanctioned or was it just done?

Backroads,
very common, referred to as a "Commercial Overprint"
https://commercialoverprints.com/

An interesting article. I occasionally run across these and have never really known before, how they were used. Thank you.

I have one of those somewhere. Guess I better go look for it.

I buy a bag of GB kiloware every few months to get items for trading, I have found quite a few of those over prints from various electricty boards, local councils and companies. Gotta admit, they are interesting things to find.

I found these two in my GB stamps. :)

http://www.cosgb.org/

These were applied to prevent staff from stealing stamps and selling them.

In the 19th. century, the GPO would accept surplus stamps and pay cash. To prevent clerks from stealing the stamps and selling them to the post office, companies were allowed to mark them (perfins, underprints, overprints). The post office would accept the use, but not buy them back.

From 1881, stamps could be used as proof of payment of revenue tax. Consequently, companies held stock of stamps for that reason. Again, to prevent staff from stealing them, they overprinted them. The overprint did not invalidate them for revenue purposes.

The handwriting or date-stamping in rod's examples were added when revenue was collected by the company.
After the use of postage stamps for revenue purposes (1968) was abolished, some were used for paying postage.

I know I have a receipt of some kind with a QEII example on it. I will try to find it tonight. It was in my grandmother's pile of stuff.

There is a free catalogue PDF on line on Great Britain Commerical Overprints

http://www.filateliaspecializzata.i...tter%20S.pdf