Postage Stamp Chat Board & Stamp Bulletin Board Forum
 

The first (48c rose) is an outright forgery, as it is about 1 mm too wide, and unwatermarked, on soft fibrous paper as well.

The next five (Edwards) are higher values whose revenue cancels have been covered up (not too well) with fake postal cancels; posted so you can see typical efforts.

The two Specimens are not included in the 6-stamp "fake" count. If you know Hong Kong or you know Specimens, please comment if these "look" genuine.

I'm hoping they are pictured in the new SG Part 17 I just ordered from Glen.

The letter shape on the "Specimen" looks suss to me. However left as mint they'd often be worth more is my guess.

Depends on what Cat # they are and with those chinese character o/ps that is sometimes tough to decipher.

That book should be with you Doug. Left the day these parcels to Scotland and Canada left IIRC -

http://www.stampboards.com/viewtopic.php?f=13&t=29146&p=2207718#p2207718

Wow, the Vic forgery is pretty rough.

The postmarks over the fiscal pen cancels...whoever did that thought it would fool anyone?

Regarding the SPECIMENS, Yang's illustrates examples for a couple issues. In both cases, the handstamp is a straight horizontal line. Also a solid black, whereas these are a bit washed.

However, were samples of stamps sometimes sent out ad hoc, and given a one-off handstamp, so they don't fit the 'standard production model'?

_________________
Collecting Mongolia; Thailand; Indo-China; Mourning Covers; OHMS.
My online 'store': http://stampsfromaethelwulf.blogspot.com/

In Yang these are 45 and 46. (Chinese surcharge on left value tablet). Together with their high-value companion (#47 is the $1 on 96c purple on red paper), they catalogue HKD$3,000 for a basic mint set, but $10,000 for a Specimen set.

_________________
Collecting Mongolia; Thailand; Indo-China; Mourning Covers; OHMS.
My online 'store': http://stampsfromaethelwulf.blogspot.com/

Bingo ... points to fakes to me.

Looks like the bloke with the John Bull kit has put the "S" upside down in the wooden holder

_________________
When a man comes to me for advice, I find out the kind of advice he wants, and I give it to him

Although I must say from here, these GENUINE specimens did not have brilliant overprints!



However NSW had a better style -

The HONG KONG, PAID ALL cds. is a fiscal cancel. It is not unusual to see that cancel used in conjunction with pen cancels.

The local SPECIMEN overprints looks OK, Samuels type HK4, it shows the inverted S 21.5mm. x 3mm. It was a woodblock overprint used at the GPO,

David B.

Glen, went down for the mail about an hour ago, and sure enough, there was the Part 17 safe and sound.

Would have let you know sooner except the page fell open to the Treaty Port cancels and I could not get away.

Already, I highly recommend the book to everyone. It has about twice as many pages as my old 4th Edition, and color illustrations throughout.

I know this topic is now a little luke warm, but I've done a little digging around for any info on these specimens.

At first I thought the application of specimen handstamps to this particular issue (SG 48 thru' 50) couldn't be right.

After all, specimen copies of the original surcharged issue (SG 45 thru' 47, printed by De La Rue), had already been issued; and these are catalogue listed.

The only difference between the two issues being; the addition of the Chinese characters for 20c, 50c and one Dollar.

However, these additional characters were requested after the printing had been completed, by the Governor of Hong Kong, who was concerned that the Chinese population would be confused by English only surcharges; even though other English only surcharged issues had been used before.

But De La Rue could not produce new surcharge plates in time for their issue date. Consequently, the Chinese 'chops' had to be applied locally; individually by hand. It presumably follows, that 'specimen' copies were produced locally as well; probably 400 sets (as at 1891) for distribution throughout the British UPU colonies. Why this was necessary, is to me a mystery. From what I understand, the UPU required specimens only when there was a change of colour, value, or surcharge!! Anyway:

Enter the diagonally applied Marcus Samuel Type HK 4, which had been used locally on a number of previous issues.

What is irritating (but not surprising), is there being no reference to the existence of specimen copies in the Stanley Gibbons catalogue for this issue.

In conclusion, the provenance of these specimen handstamps seems rather good:

A specimen set of SG 48, 49 & 50, were sold from the collection of Ryohei Ishikawa, in the Sotheby Parke Bernet auction, held on Dec 4th 1980.

I've looked at the handstamps very carefully and compared them to your images. Two of the three values in Ishikawa's set have a horizontal line above and spanning the word 'specimen'. The third value does not.

Aside from the above, there is very little difference; only that which may be attributed to wear and tear. The 'inverted S' that has been referred to by others, is consistent with all Samuel HK 4's shown in the same catalogue - and there are quite a number!

Hope this is of some help!

_________________
Clive

PS 'doug2222usa'.

I've just noticed that the 20c surcharge in your image does have a feint horizontal line in the same position as Ishikawa's specimens.

Looking even better now!

_________________
Clive

The horizontal line is from ink at the edge of the handstamp when applied. It may or may not occur, it all depends on the angle that the handstamp was applied,

David B.

Gibbons London tell me the "CHINA" was a huge sales success, mainly as Yang are totally asleep in that market it seems, with no new cat for years.

They tell me a NEW SG Edition is nearly done and will be printed in May, and I'll express out an air freight box of those for anyone interested.

Glen