Various devices have been used in the past on RW stamps to prevent pilfering of the stamps used for company business by employees. In Going Postal and Making Money there are mentions of the DW stamps being used as a de-facto currency, especially the higher values as these are much easier to carry than a pocketful of coins. In the RW one could take unused stamps to the post office and exchange them for cash at their face value. A temptation for low paid, dissatisfied or corrupt employees. Security devices in the past have included overprints (notably governmental departments and nationalised industries, as well as some private companies) and perfins - little holes like perforations but tracing letters and symbols, punched into the centre of the stamp with an abbreviation or the intials of the company. Perfins can also be used decoratively, or to convey a message beyond the use of actual characters. Perfins solution have not had an full-blown issue in Discworld Stamps, but that does not mean there have not been trials of this.

The first example is as the result of emails between myself and Hilary Daniels at the Discworld Emporium. One wet Sunday afternoon she and her husband sat down and worked on how perfins could be produced using items to hand. The result was small nails hammered through a block of wood, sufficiently for the points to protrude through to the other side. They were arranged in the T and S logo of Teemer and Spools. They are a bit under-scaled for perfins and do not really show up on the front of the stamp, though the concept was proved. This example may actually be a unique item.

The second example may also be a unique item. It is a Smoking Gnu stamp with a diamond perfin shape, the significance of which is lost on me; perhaps it was just a bit of experimentation. These were not made by diagonal perforating lines; if they were they would extend to the stamp margins. They were made to produce a diamond shape within the stamp design. I say unique because even if more were produced these stamps were printed in panes of 12 different, so that there may be 12 perfinned stamps they would all be different ones, perhaps with differing perfins too.