I think it is MBC, which was possibly Middlesboro or Manchester Borough council. Probably quite a few candidates for the Town name but likely to be one of the larger ones.
I could be wrong but I think Manchester would be "City" council.
At that time there were ( unitary authority ) "County Borough" Council and (non-unitary) "Borough" councils. For those outside the U.K. a unitary authority has more powers - equivalent to a County Council in old money. Some County Boroughs certainly did use "CBC" rather than BC - but possibly not all. Middlesbrough was a CBC ( but may not have used CBC on it's receipts and/or perfins ).
As a rule of thumb fiscally used overprints are best collected on the original documents as an aid to identification. There are many MBC possibilities some may or may not have used initials, some may have used the full name in two lines the town name on one side and BC or Borough C on the other. I have not seen enough to say. Non county boroughs include Macclesfield, Maidenhead, Mansfield and Morley in England and no doubt many more in England and Wales - not sure about Scotland - local government there is different and Borough is Burgh.
Anything showing UDC is Urban District Council or RDC Rural District Council.CC could be City Council or County Council. Just to confuse our transatlantic brethren even more a City could be either a County Borough, a non-county Borough or an Urban District. At the time we are talking about the sole qualification to be designated City was the possession of a Cathedral, and was nothing to do with the level of power enjoyed by it's civic government.
Even more confusing is that there have been several local government reorganisations, together with even more boundary adjustments. Even us Brits get confused !
Silence in the face of adversity is the father of complicity and collusion, the first cousins of conspiracy.. 26 Apr 2017 12:36:40am
re: Overprint Help
In the recent past there was a document tax in the UK on certain utilities . To show that the tax was paid a stamp, usually 2p, or whatever the specific tax was, would be affixed to the document.
The agencies accepted the payment and affixed the stamp so the stamps were overprinted to show this. Technically they are not postage stamps once the overprint is applied, mbut I like mounting them on a separate page set aside for each reign.
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".... You may think you understood what you thought I said, but I'm not sure you realize that what you think you heard is not what I thought I meant. .... "
This was a general stamp duty that applied on all receipts and many other documents including cheques.
Until 1920 the tax was 1d and then it was fixed at 2d until it was abolished in 1971 just before decimalisation.
There was a short period in 1971 when the overprinted 2d stamps could be used for postage to allow firms to use up stock they still held.
Some 6d stamps were overprinted for use in a similar way to pay for the tax on insurance policies.
Most small firms and individuals just used 2d postage stamps without overprints and cancelled them either with a rubber stamp or by hand.
I remember, when I was a child, my lovely old piano teacher sticking a brown 2d Machin stamp to her bill and cancelling it by hand even though the tax had already been abolished.
She charged three guineas for ten lessons which even then was very cheap!
Thanks for your input. I have bookmarked the home page for the Machins that you provided, but, after looking at the site there is more information than I can absorb. As I said, will stick with my W/F, the Machins make my old feeble brain ache.
Silence in the face of adversity is the father of complicity and collusion, the first cousins of conspiracy.. 26 Apr 2017 12:07:55pm
re: Overprint Help
Just in case someone wonders about; " .... I think you have the 2014 OFNP Walsall with 14+T code ...."
Yes the background "overprint" is "ROYAL MAIL" in wavy lines. Notice that the word MAIL just to the left and slightly above of the Queen's forehead. It says ROYAL M14L, that is the year of printing. Then to the top right corner the word MAIL is printed MTIL which indicates the source, a Twelve part booklet pane.
While over all Machin collecting can nbe complex, just about every part is quite easy to learn.
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".... You may think you understood what you thought I said, but I'm not sure you realize that what you think you heard is not what I thought I meant. .... "
Going back to the Commercial Overprints, the "Fylde Water Board" is possibly one of the scarcer overprints.
The Fylde Water Company was founded to supply water and remove waste water in the Blackpool, Preston and Blackburn area of NW England. It was renamed and reconstituted as the Fylde Water Board in 1897, and amalgamated with other water suppliers in 1973 to become North West Water Board. On privatisation of the water supply industry it became North West Water plc (private limited company ) and later amalgamated with an Electricity supplier to become United Utilities.
The area covered by Fylde Water Board, while quite densely populated in parts, is small in comparison to the areas covered by the like of Manchester Corporation Waterworks, covering a somewhat similar size area with possibly 20 times the population.
Millions of these stamps would have been overprinted for receipting water supply bills, however very few will have survived- as old collectors held these in even less esteem than perfins (which were destroyed wholesale as being worthless). One of these on an original water bill would be a genuine ephemera "museum piece".
I have googled, as a matter of interest, " Fylde Water Board" and while the amount of information is fairly limited it does produce interesting information about compulsorily purchasing a whole valley and turfing out the population so that a reservoir could be built.
I fear that a combination of increasing population and drought caused by global warming may well lead to history repeating itself. We all take water and sewage so much for granted, but in a complex society we ignore their ramifications at our peril.
While this stamp is intrinsically "worthless", the history it can lead to is priceless.
So much more interesting than the same stamp postally used with a nondescript indeterminate postmark.
Who says stamp collecting is boring?
Malcolm
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