Sloper Records
Steve Steere
This section of the website contains records saved from J. Sloper & Co., a firm which played a large part in the history of perfins.
The invention of the perfin is credited to the British inventor Joseph Sloper who, after much effort, finally persuaded The Post Office to allow the perforation of British postage stamps. The official authorisation was given on 13th March 1868.
The firm that he founded - J. Sloper & Co. - established a sizeable perforating business which none of their competitors could overtake.
In 1990 I made contact with Bill Cokayne the Managing Director of J Sloper & Co Ltd and managed to arrange a Society visit at their Tower Royal Works in West Hampstead, London, almost certainly because my surname was the same as his fellow director who had recently died and he thought we were related. By the time it was discovered I wasn’t, the ice had been broken and the Society finally gained access after years of attempts.
The Society was able to get a few visits there and we saw the record books but were not initially allowed to look at them. Then Dave Hill and I were allowed to visit and take photographs of the pages of their most recent records (Book 1).
In 1991 Sloper had been bought out and was being closed down, staff laid off, with the perforating business being transferred to Checkpoint Ltd in Reading. Bill Cokayne then offered their records to the Society.
Joseph Sloper aged 60 on his ‘carte-de-visite’.
© Science Museum - Science & Society Picture Library
The following items were saved from J. Sloper & Co. in 1991 and are now available on this website, except where noted:
- Book 1 A ledger containing the user identity, sample label illustrations of perfins, commercial overprints and insurance dies used with the costs. Pages 1 to 36 were initially retained as they were being sent to Reading, though subsequently obtained for the Society in 2016 by Derek Ransom.
- Book 2 A ledger containing the user identity, sample label illustrations of perfins, commercial overprints and insurance dies used with the costs. This Book predates Book 1 and was probably started in the late 1940’s.
- A-K and L-Z ledgers containing the user identity, address, sample label illustrations of perfins, commercial overprints and insurance dies used with the costs. These ledgers, being clean, were probably used to provide invoices to Sloper’s customers.
- Red Book A4 sized, containing the user identity, address, sample label illustrations of perfins, commercial overprints and insurance dies used with the costs, probably replaced the aforementioned ledgers.
- Brown Book A small booklet containing Waterlow dies at one end with name and sample label illustrations, and at the other end Insurance dies, again with name and sample label illustrations. Ledger wholly in manuscript that was probably put into use after Sloper’s City office in Budge Row was badly damaged in May 1941 after an air raid. Staff and Account books.
- Record books illustrating machine dies made by Sloper for customers in the reign of Queen Victoria, with a sample strike but without any identities. Bill Cokayne told us that all previous records were lost in the war. Unfortunately no records were found containing details of perforating machines sold to customers from the 1940’s onwards. Not yet available.
The pages of the various books can be viewed in order using the links above.
An alphabetical index of the firms mentioned in the records can be accessed via the following links:
If any errors are spotted then please contact the webmaster.