Postage Stamp Chat Board & Stamp Bulletin Board Forum
 

I had about 150 different for reference, but
all now sold. I think the foot "test" still holds.

More French colonies - Fournier, each surcharged "FAUX" at top left.

Found this 1865 Spain 12c Invert in an old collection.



Don't know who it's by, but not a bad effort compared to many other forgeries. Note patched in top corner - probably done by the collector who put it in that old album.

Of course, I'd be delighted to learn it's genuine

And a famous fake - the Orange Free State Commando Brief sheetlet - has square dots.

Set of British Guiana fakes/ Forgeries.

_________________
"Life is a tough Teacher, it gives you the test first and the lesson later"
Anonymous

This looks like the 1861 Perkins Bacon first printing of the 1/- Swan issue of Western Australia, yellow-green, intermediate perf.14-16, SG37.

In fact, I had it for sale until I was advised it was a Spiro/Fournier forgery

_________________
Tony

Just over thirty-one years ago, my local PO celebrated its centenary, in September 1979, with a special postmark.
It also provided an official souvenir (event) cover to mark the occasion.
Unserviced (blank) envelopes were sold at 12c each.
The cover is listed in Australian Post Office Souvenir Covers by Almeida as Cat. No. SE31.
The cover sells for around $35 today.

Just the other day I was asked whether the cover shown in the centre was a forgery.
As the author of the above Catalogue, I do get a few such enquiries.

The conclusions reached were:
1. That the stamp is genuine.
2. The cover is genuine.
3. But the pictorial postmark has been forged using a photocopying machine!
(The tell-tale signs of the micro black dots caused by the toner shows up clearly all over the cover).


Genuine stamp, cover and postmark.


Genuine stamp and cover, but forged postmark.


Official Mail bearing the pictorial postmark.

_________________
Noel Almeida, Night Watchman, Australia Down Under.
Author: Overseas Mailers of New York FDCs of Australia.

Eastern Auctions Nov 6 2010 Public Auction is auctioning a Canada 12p Queen Victoria that is a forgery. It's pretty much the most renowned Canadian stamp. Jean de Sperati took a proof and removed the vertical SPECIMEN, then he covered it by adding a fake concentric rings black cancel. It was made to order for Vincente Greene. Estimated realization? $5000.00 . In 1998 it realized $4600.00. I have very mixed feelings about this, but mostly it just bugs me. It's like the fruit of the poisonous tree in law.

_________________
Always looking for modern Canada on paper!
Topical Interests: Disney, Boats/Sailing Ships/Lighthouses, Horses/Horsedrawn, Butterflies/Insects, and Trains - E-mail me with descriptions or scans if you have some!

Managed to locate my GB Gold 1st Forgery cover, It looks perfect and a good stamp as it looks like it has phosphor bands at either side, but when you hold it up horizontal to light theres nothing it's just flat.

_________________
Donald.
Aus KGV Head Addict !

Hello I am new in forum so apologize if I have some difficulties with this...

1st here is a link to an excellent resource on stamp forgeries of Venezuela early issues.. there are great works
http://www.asofilca.com/lang/en/articul ... o-resello/

2d. I have aquired a huge French colonies collection with many interesting items all pre 1900
which are those forgeries on these stamps... are only the fournier ones ?
I rather first keep in the stamps itself without consider the overprints that I find a harder job for a future inspection... I am wondering if I am missing anything. ?
Thanks for your help

Here's one, the cancel is dodgy there was no British post office here in Levant . For some years Gibbons listed them as legitimate then decided against it.

I have listed these before but figured put them in the correct thread. Kuwait cancell applied over a blurred cancel some how I dont thinks. Value omitted but where the value should be is cleaner than the surrounding area.

The poor old Indian States have had more than their fair share attention from the forgers.

Fortunately, their efforts are often laughable, like this attempt at Charkhari SG 29a



They may have been a little primitive in printing techniques at Charkhari, but at least they knew how to spell 'POSTAGE'



Jammu & Kashmir can be quite tricky, with outright forgeries, reprints and items of dubious status, but this attempt to fake the sheet of Jammu SG 60 (positions 1, 2 and 4) and SG 61 (position 3) isn't likely to cause problems to anyone who's seen the real thing:



(The genuine is on the left, in case you were wondering )

But this one has me really perplexed:



It's a weird sort of copy of Hyderabad SG 14, with a cancellation looking nothing like anything ever used in Hyderabad - and even the genuine stamps sell for a few cents. Why on earth bother?

_________________
'First I'll steal all the money, then I'll kill everybody, and then I'll go away', Père Ubu

ebay sellers do not think they realize when they sell a Forgeries, greetings.

I understand the top row are forgeries because the Q in Belgique is an O.
I suspect the bottom row are forgeries too, but how do you tell?

Thanx in advance
John

.... and what about these? Michel doesn't warn of forgeries for this set, but there seems an awful lot about. The postmark on the left stamp is le Havre in France which was the seat of the Belgian government in exile - is that genuine?

Thanx again,
John

The Charleroi overprints look OK to me, with the possible exception
of the 1c. The scan is not good enough to tell for sure. If the base
of the C is below the base of the other letters then it's fake.

The big Alberts are also OK to the best of my knowledge. Usually
the Le Havre postmarks have (SPECIAL) following the name. The
one that doesn't is normally found in early 1915 (like yours), but
with the date backdated to 18.10.14 (date of the opening of the
Belgian PO in Le Havre).

_________________
Jay Carrigan
http://www.jaypex.com

Really useful information.

Thanks Jay

John

I always assume the Red Cross are fakes unless noted otherwsie.

I am asounded Michel does not have a FALSCH warning on them? I've had sheets of them in the past!

Thought I would post here a cover franked with 2 copies of the 1932 2d KGV Postal Forgeries that we are offering in our current auction. This is one of 7 known covers. The stamps are from positions 27 and 30 on the forgers printing plate.

It is being offered together with the original pamphlet offering the Irish Sweepstake Tickets, something I haven't seen previously. In common with modern day Nigerian email scams there are a number of typos on the pamphlet.





Regards

Steve

_________________
Stamp Auctions On-line www.philatelics.com.au

Further to the above post I have been curious about the destinations of known 2d KGV Sweepstake Postal Forgery covers.

The Dr. Black cover that led to the discovery of the forgeries was addressed to Adelaide, as was a cover offered by Millennium Auctions in 2007 that realised $11,650.00 and the cover we are in possession of.

Both our cover and the one offered by Millennium were addressed to storekeepers and were franked with 2 examples of the stamps, a note included stated the cover included (forged) tickets, which he had sold and forwarded the proceeds to the scammers in Sydney. So presumably covers franked with one stamp had only a leaflet or single ticket, covers franked with 2 contained multiple tickets.

As an aside we had a large carton of 2d Red KGV stamps some years ago that we were sorting through for South Australia postmarks. Part of the way through we found a 2d Postal Forgery, a careful sort through the whole carton revealed 7 examples in total.

The apparent (relative) prevalence of the Postal Forgeries in Adelaide has me wondering whether there any covers are known addressed to other than Adelaide. Does anyone of in their possession either covers or images of other known covers.



Steve

_________________
Stamp Auctions On-line www.philatelics.com.au

It may have something to do with SA's different trading and gambling laws as they still do today? Extradition laws when found out?

Was the return address legit? It's a bit far to come from Adelaide and beat the head in of the guy running it when it's all uncovered!

Just reading the add, they had 6 weeks after close of ticket sales to flee the country!

_________________
Greg - Looking for Goulburn Australia Cancels and Grangemouth Scotland Cancels and Covers
Member of the S.T.A.M.P Club for Slightly Twisted And Mad Philatelists - Motto: "Bring back the lick!"

I'm sure the return address was legitimate, albeit likely to be a very temporary office location.

It does make sense that the last place you would have tried to sell the tickets would be Sydney, where you would be likely to receive unwanted personal visits from purchasers of the tickets.

Steve

_________________
Stamp Auctions On-line www.philatelics.com.au

By chance I came across an image of a 2d KGV cover illustrated in the March 1988 edition of The Australian Philatelist, which was also addressed to Adelaide, to a Mr. F.W. Preece, Newsagent, King William St, Adelaide. Don't think this is the same cover Millennium sold in 2007, but haven't been able to access that image as there web site hasn't been operational for a while.

So the covers I am aware of

Dr Black

Whiteborn (actually a typo for Whitehorn)

Preece

and the Millennium 2007 cover? were all addressed to Adelaide.

Steve

_________________
Stamp Auctions On-line www.philatelics.com.au

I only have an off paper example, but note the roller cancel. Looks to be the same POST EARLY cancel as the cover, evan apparantly applied to the envelope at a similar angle..

_________________
Peter
Hawthorn - AFL Premiers 1961, 1971, 1976, 1978, 1983, 1986, 1988, 1989, 1991, 2008.

Lovely cover by the way!

_________________
Peter
Hawthorn - AFL Premiers 1961, 1971, 1976, 1978, 1983, 1986, 1988, 1989, 1991, 2008.

Here is a set of the 1898-99 Crete issue I posted last year and am certain they are counterfeit:



They are all perf 11 - original is perf 11.5

But now I find this MNH pair and they ARE perf 11.5.........can anyone identify these are real or counterfeit? The numerals are almost too clean........



John A

_________________
Armstrong'sStamps**http://www.armstrongsstamps.ca
Knowledge is Key.....Libraries work!

And while I'm on the subject.............I know that it is assumed all of the Iran overprints are fake, but I have 3 to present here for comment:







Any determining factor to allow identification in the future would be appreciated.

John A

_________________
Armstrong'sStamps**http://www.armstrongsstamps.ca
Knowledge is Key.....Libraries work!

John- here is a genuine set with the normal CTO cancel.

The perfs do not really mean anything as the forgeries were made by Grundman & Stangel , who printed the originals. So some have the same perf as original also.

Look at the rays above the numerals- on forgeries the small circle is open at the bottom.

On originals the circle is complete.

Many forgeries come with a similar cancel, but the shape of the lettering, thickness, and size vary.

Thanks, Mike. Absolutely what I see:





Both forgeries. Thanks for the tip.

John A

_________________
Armstrong'sStamps**http://www.armstrongsstamps.ca
Knowledge is Key.....Libraries work!

U.S. Confederate States Counterfeit:



...short middle bar on "F" of FIVE.....basically missing eyes on Jefferson Davis

John A

_________________
Armstrong'sStamps**http://www.armstrongsstamps.ca
Knowledge is Key.....Libraries work!

Hi Mike,

You've picked a nice example of the 10 para brown - this is the only transfer position on any value that has the incomplete circle.

_________________
Nigel

Heligoland revisited. I had written these off as fakes and I know the straight line cancels are fake, but a member of my stamp club who collects this area insists they are reprints with fake cancels.

I have no clue.

_________________
"Life is a tough Teacher, it gives you the test first and the lesson later"
Anonymous

nigel- I puzzled over that 10 para for a while

The printers must have done that just to confuse everyone

I lack a good reference work on Crete, so still have a hard time sorting out some of the other issues.

stallzer- They are reprints with fake cancels.

Forgeries of the stamps themselves are scarce.

When Goldner started flooding the market with reprints, he made it pointless for anyone to produce forgeries.

The Spiros made some forgeries, and seem to have stopped.

Out of an full album, I think I have only two actual forgeries.

Oh oh..........does that mean that this other single I have could be original?



It still seems too clean, but I'm not certain.......

I love the "...but wait, there's more......."

John A

_________________
Armstrong'sStamps**http://www.armstrongsstamps.ca
Knowledge is Key.....Libraries work!

I'm afraid not John. It's a definite forgery.

_________________
Nigel

Sorry John- Didn't mean to confuse you

I picked that 10 para because it had the clearest cancel, and only realized it was the one with the broken circle after it was too late.

Once you have a set of genuine, you see the type of paper, the shades, and the print quality are all better on the originals.

Thanks, again........

I notice now that both my copies of 10 para brown have flaws in lower right value frame.......I'll watch for that in the future.

John A

_________________
Armstrong'sStamps**http://www.armstrongsstamps.ca
Knowledge is Key.....Libraries work!

Helgoland -

Caveat: I'm not an expert and my information is mostly from
a 1984 pamphlet.

Cancels - the British spelling HELIGOLAND is always a fake.

It would help if you could measure the perfs, such as they are.
Better yet if you could describe the paper - thin, medium,
soft, hard, quadrille, surfaced, smooth, etc.

All of your stamps have head (chignon) type I.

½ Sch. and 1 Sch. - there are no reprints with head type I.
Not likely to be originals (colors don't seem right). Probably
Spiro brothers forgeries.

2 Sch. - could be a reprint, not rouletted, corner ornaments
not embossed. But I think it's another Spiro forgery (the
cornices and the lettering give it away).

6 Sch. - could be a reprint, not rouletted. But again I think
it's a Spiro.

In my opinion all are fakes.

(When I started to write this I though you probably had two
reprints and two fakes. As things progressed I convinced
myself that that wasn't the case.)

_________________
Jay Carrigan
http://www.jaypex.com

Look what I just found in an estate carton......a set of Buenos Aires......I'm rich, I'm rich!!



I know these have been discussed several other places on this board, but I thought I'd post these ones up with single images for others to use as a reference:
















Unless, of course, anyone sees something that indicates any of these actually being real??????

John A

_________________
Armstrong'sStamps**http://www.armstrongsstamps.ca
Knowledge is Key.....Libraries work!

No explanation of this one needed.

Kev, one smallish give-away is that British stamps were never overprinted for use in Zanzibar

_________________
'First I'll steal all the money, then I'll kill everybody, and then I'll go away', Père Ubu

Sorry Kev, I should list why I think its a fraud. When I see something different and that was. I get excited pull out the catalogue and look. And there is no GB overprinted for use in Zanzibar. However perhaps its a newly dicovered rarity? Well the overprinting appears to be over the cancel. And that appears to be perhaps a Tunbridge Wells duplex cancel possibly. And last I looked thats most deffinetly in the UK. But I live optimistically and hope to be proven wrong

Left: Jeffryes forgery.
Right: I do not know who the forger of this one is.

Some forgery info for Victoria - Australia.
http://www.stampsofvictoria.com/half.php

Japanese stamps were forged to be applied to 'Tourist Sheets' the very large and colourful sheets of 'all the stamps issued by Japan'. Whilst the current and recent ones were easy to find, earlier ones were not and so copies were produced, some with gaps in the design to accommodate the 'postmark' as shown here. This may be from a similar source. I think Wada was the name of one of the forgers, there were others.

_________________
Ian Billings - Norvic Philatelics GB stamps info: http://www.norphil.co.uk - also /catalog for our ecommerce site, blog.norphil.co.uk, shop.norphil.co.uk and Ian_norvic on twitter

Although this one does appear to have the overprint over the postmark, one should never assume that just because a Zululand stamp is postmarked Bolton that the overprint is a forgery.

British stamps overprinted for use elsewhere on which the value was not changed were valid for postage in Great Britain. Stamps were demonitised at various stages, of course, but QE2 stamps overprinted for use in Tangier and the Persian Gulf States were valid for UK use right up to decimalisation, so use continued into 1972.

From Gibbons Stamp Monthly, May 2009:

From the Postal Stationery Society Journal Vol 17/3 August 2009 (ex Peter Young, GB Journal Vol 40/2, April 2002, GBPS

_________________
Ian Billings - Norvic Philatelics GB stamps info: http://www.norphil.co.uk - also /catalog for our ecommerce site, blog.norphil.co.uk, shop.norphil.co.uk and Ian_norvic on twitter

Recent British postal forgeries.

Not obviously wrong to the casual user, or indeed many postal workers! Everything is wrong:

the gold and head image are reasonable
the security slits are close but not right
the perforations are extremely poor
there are no phosphor bands, although some sort of varnish appears to have been applied
the paper has a high gloss

Surprisingly, given the poor die cuts, the stamps also have an imitation security overprint with some of the letters of ROYAL MAIL repeated across the background (but not the head). Even more surprisingly these have passed through the mail unhindered. Two examples show as they are different (not the colour, that's different scanners) but the 'perforations':

_________________
Ian Billings - Norvic Philatelics GB stamps info: http://www.norphil.co.uk - also /catalog for our ecommerce site, blog.norphil.co.uk, shop.norphil.co.uk and Ian_norvic on twitter

Postscript to this story, courtesy of Warwick & Warwick who visited our Philatelic Society Tuesday. (They showed some absolute gems on a power point presentation but some other items 'for real'.

Apparently a lady in Coventry bought a house and found some of these in a cupboard - when I say 'some' I mean a pile of sheets! The house had been sold and sheets left behind: of course PO Investigations Department visited the previous owner who eventually went down for 7 years. W & W were given one sheet, for the help, on the understanding that it was never split nor sold.

_________________
Ian Billings - Norvic Philatelics GB stamps info: http://www.norphil.co.uk - also /catalog for our ecommerce site, blog.norphil.co.uk, shop.norphil.co.uk and Ian_norvic on twitter