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Overprints are letters, numbers, symbols or pictures stamped or printed on postage stamps after completion of the original printing procedure.  A surcharge is a type of overprint that raises or lowers the denomination, or face value of a stamp.

Overprints often consist of slogans concerning current events. The slogans advertise and promote public attention toward social or political causes or problems.  Overprints are also used to commemorate historical events they are also used to change one kind of stamp into another.  For example, via an overprint, a revenue stamp might become a postage due stamp. Overprints have also been used to signify a change of government, different from that on the original stamp, when a change has taken place in a country’s dominion.

Some overprints are known as ‘control marks’.  These are used to guard against illegal use of lost or stolen stamps.  When an overprint is utilized for this purpose, all normal stamps without the ‘control marks’ are invalidated and cannot be used for postage.

An over print might cover one or more stamps.  For example, one single stamping or printing action might provide four adjacent stamps with overprints. Overprints can resemble cancellations, but the collector can, with the aid of a stamp catalogue, discern an overprint from a cancellation.

Surcharges, overprints which change the face value of a stamp, often obliterate the original denomination and print another value on a different part of the stamp. Because it is easier, cheaper and faster to overprint an existing stamp than to print a new one surcharges are often used to provide a stamp for a new postal rate.  Sometimes an inflationary trend changes postal rates so fast that new stamps could not possibly be printed quickly enough to reflect the changes. This was often the case shortly after World War I, and countries often utilized surcharges during this era.

Surcharges are also used to provide a stamp with a particular denomination when quantities of a stamp normally used for this face value have run out. Surcharges have also been used to raise money for charitable causes.

Three basic methods have been used for overprinting stamps. Overprints may be printed on existing postage stamps in a way similar to that in which the stamps were originally printed.  Overprints are also individually hand stamped over existing postage stamps.  A third kind of overprinting involves applying each overprint with pen and ink.

Errors are more commonly found in overprints and surcharges than on non-overprinted stamps.  Overprints can accidentally be inverted; the overprint might be upside down in relation to the underlying stamp.  Or they might appear sideways, in a position perpendicular to the stamp design.  They also might be misplaced, added or omitted. They might have wrong spacing or punctuation. Or they might even be printed or stamped in the wrong color.

As with other expensive philatelic items, the collector must be cautious when purchasing rare overprinted or non-overprinted stamps.  Overprints can be added or deleted from stamps by an individual rather than an authorized government or agent to make the item appear more valuable.  The authenticity of these stamps as well as others can be checked by a philatelic society, company or dealer before purchase.