The Second World War brought many changes to Romania.  One of the less significant of these was the demise of perfinned postage stamps. This opens up an interesting and little studied area of Romanian philately.  In this article I will set out the results of my research as a starting point for others.  

The war produced great changes in Romania, and the coming of the People’s Republic caused many more.  It is convenient to study this period of Romanian perfin philately in two smaller periods – before and after the coming of the People’s Republic. 

Many of the perfin users in this period had been using Perfins from the earliest times of Romanian Perfins, but some started only after WW2. However, the coming of the Republic with the removal of private ownership quickly killed the use of perfins. 

It will be seen that the majority of Perfins used in this period were used in Bucharest, and that many of them were used by banks.  This was also the case prewar, but after the war a larger proportion of perfin users were outside Bucharest although they were still a small minority. 

At the end of this article is a catalogue of Perfins known to have been used in Romania post-war

The end of WW2 in Romania was a confused affair, but for philatelic convenience I will use the date 12th September 1944,
and consider perfins used after that date as ‘post-war’. 

Some 50% of the post war-perfin users continued to use Perfins after the formation of the Peoples’ Republic, but the use of Perfins did not survive long into the Peoples’Republic Period.

 The users in this period were largely official bodies, including Banks and Newspapers, but there are a few other units who continued to use Perfins.  Notable in the latter group was a Textile Mill in Galati, which continued to use the ‘F.’ perfin of Filomon Sabu into the 1950’s and this was one of the last postal perfin users in Romania. 

 The latest use of the ‘F.’ perfin I have seen is postmarked 8th February 1954.  This is currently just beaten for the title of the laterest Romanian perfin use by the newpaper ‘Scanteia Tineretuli’ who use their perfin ‘ST’ on a stamp postmarked 8th June 1954

 
Postmark 8th June 1954               Postmark 8th February 1954 

 A list of those concerns who continued to use Perfins after the start of the People’s Republic are show in black in the catalogue at the end of this article

I always like to finish articles with a question for the reader, so I draw your attention to the catalogue entries for ‘F.A’.  These perfins are quite rare, but are known in the post-war period preceding the declaration of the Peoples’s Republic. This perfin has not been identified with a user.  However, during the Republic period, there is a ‘new’ perfin ‘F’, identified with Filimon Sabu. I have only seen them after the declaration of the People’s Republic.  Could these be partial strikes of ‘F.A.’?  Accidental partial strikes are common, but in this case all examples I have seen seem to have been very carefully produced so only the “F.” is shown on the stamp.  This is consistent even on large format values and so may have been intentional.  Did the name associated with the initial “A” become politically unacceptable under the new regime? 

Cover Identifying ‘F.’ with Filimon Sabu            

 All the above information is provisional only and I would be delighted to receive corrections and additions by e-mail at TLlewellyn@aol.com

In the number column the first number refers to the Eros Catalogue and the second to the Perfin Society/Edwards Catalogue. Those in “gray” are known used in 1945 and later and those in black are known used in 1949 and later.  The period numbers are from the Eros Catalogue