Discussion - Member to Member Sales - Research Center
Discussion - Member to Member Sales - Research Center
May be Greek...not sure..any help would be appreciated
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Hi Bob,
These are forgeries of two of the British Administration in Crete stamps from 1898.
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thanks
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Here are four of the original stamps:
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Note, in the genuine stamps, the sun is a complete circle.
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Michael is spot on here. 
Here are three more examples:
From left to right:
1. A genuine stamp (position 1 in the first transfer block).
This has the complete circle just above the large figure 10.
2. A forgery made by the original printers in Athens.
Here the same small circle is incomplete at the bottom.
I wonder if this was done deliberately to mark out these out as reproductions?
3. Another forgery.
This also has the incomplete circle but in addition the colour, paper, perforation and printing don't reflect the original production quality.
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After a few minutes of study, I cannot find any other deviations in the engraving of the forgeries. This would lead me to conclude that they are reprints from the original dies.
From study of other forged issues, it's inconceivable that a forger could reproduce an engraving that perfectly.
Interesting!
-Paul
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According to Varro Tyler, reprints of this issue do not exist. He states that some of the counterfeits were made by the printers of the original issue, Gundman & Stangel in Athens, but the counterfeits were not printed from the original stone. The counterfeits were sold by Francois Fournier in Geneva.
The genuine stamps are perforated 11.5. It is believed that Fournier also printed the counterfeits, and perforated them 11. Other counterfeits can be found perfed 11.25. The original Athens forgeries are perfed 11.5 as the originals.
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Michael is correct; these stamps were not reprinted.
Even the first forgeries consistently show the incomplete circle.
The original stamps were printed in sheets of 100 made up of repeated blocks (transfers) of ten stamps.
Any genuine stamp can be identified in terms of its position in a transfer by checking for tiny flaws in the design.
These design flaws do not appear in the forgeries.
For example, here the original stamp at the left shows a characteristic white flaw in the design towards the top right. This was repeated ten times in each sheet of the 10 parades blue.
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Oh, I see it now. It's a break in the inner frame line. Don't know how I missed that.
Also looks like the 'crack' extends outwards, involving both the dentition and outer frame line.
Still interesting!
Thanks, nigel!
-Paul
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Hi Paul,
I'm glad you've found this of interest.
Most of the design flaws that I mentioned are quite hard to spot without a reference diagram and there is one position on the transfer of the 10 parades blue that doesn't appear to have any flaws.
Here's another example.
The transfer unit for the 10 parades blue consisted of ten stamps, two across and five down like this:
and here are three stamps from the bottom row of this transfer:
The stamp at the left is conventionally identified as position 9 in the transfer and has the same characteristics as the stamp on the right (which is in position 9 in the adjacent transfer block).
The identifying flaw for position 9 is a tiny dot on the bottom of the inside frame line above the greek key pattern:
.
Zooming in further, it's in the middle of this scan: 
The middle stamp (position 10) has a more interesting feature as the small circle is missing: 
The other values/colours of stamps in this design each have their own transfer characteristics and there are still some details to be worked out.
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Very interesting!
Man, that "tiny dot" on the position 9 stamp is the quintessential "fly speck"!
The Pony Express private issue stamps are really fun and interesting to plate. There are LOTS of major differences between the various positions. Sometimes, I'll surf them on eBay just for the fun and challenge of plating them. Is also a good way to practice rooting out forgeries.
Cool that you're engaged in sorting all those difference out.
Thanks!
-Paul
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07:39:59pm
May be Greek...not sure..any help would be appreciated
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re: Help with ID
Hi Bob,
These are forgeries of two of the British Administration in Crete stamps from 1898.
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07:48:22pm
re: Help with ID
thanks
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re: Help with ID
Here are four of the original stamps:
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re: Help with ID
Note, in the genuine stamps, the sun is a complete circle.
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re: Help with ID
Michael is spot on here.
Here are three more examples:
From left to right:
1. A genuine stamp (position 1 in the first transfer block).
This has the complete circle just above the large figure 10.
2. A forgery made by the original printers in Athens.
Here the same small circle is incomplete at the bottom.
I wonder if this was done deliberately to mark out these out as reproductions?
3. Another forgery.
This also has the incomplete circle but in addition the colour, paper, perforation and printing don't reflect the original production quality.
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10:54:59am
re: Help with ID
After a few minutes of study, I cannot find any other deviations in the engraving of the forgeries. This would lead me to conclude that they are reprints from the original dies.
From study of other forged issues, it's inconceivable that a forger could reproduce an engraving that perfectly.
Interesting!
-Paul
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this post
re: Help with ID
According to Varro Tyler, reprints of this issue do not exist. He states that some of the counterfeits were made by the printers of the original issue, Gundman & Stangel in Athens, but the counterfeits were not printed from the original stone. The counterfeits were sold by Francois Fournier in Geneva.
The genuine stamps are perforated 11.5. It is believed that Fournier also printed the counterfeits, and perforated them 11. Other counterfeits can be found perfed 11.25. The original Athens forgeries are perfed 11.5 as the originals.
Login to Like
this post
re: Help with ID
Michael is correct; these stamps were not reprinted.
Even the first forgeries consistently show the incomplete circle.
The original stamps were printed in sheets of 100 made up of repeated blocks (transfers) of ten stamps.
Any genuine stamp can be identified in terms of its position in a transfer by checking for tiny flaws in the design.
These design flaws do not appear in the forgeries.
For example, here the original stamp at the left shows a characteristic white flaw in the design towards the top right. This was repeated ten times in each sheet of the 10 parades blue.
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02:29:05pm
re: Help with ID
Oh, I see it now. It's a break in the inner frame line. Don't know how I missed that.
Also looks like the 'crack' extends outwards, involving both the dentition and outer frame line.
Still interesting!
Thanks, nigel!
-Paul
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this post
re: Help with ID
Hi Paul,
I'm glad you've found this of interest.
Most of the design flaws that I mentioned are quite hard to spot without a reference diagram and there is one position on the transfer of the 10 parades blue that doesn't appear to have any flaws.
Here's another example.
The transfer unit for the 10 parades blue consisted of ten stamps, two across and five down like this:
and here are three stamps from the bottom row of this transfer:
The stamp at the left is conventionally identified as position 9 in the transfer and has the same characteristics as the stamp on the right (which is in position 9 in the adjacent transfer block).
The identifying flaw for position 9 is a tiny dot on the bottom of the inside frame line above the greek key pattern:
.
Zooming in further, it's in the middle of this scan:
The middle stamp (position 10) has a more interesting feature as the small circle is missing:
The other values/colours of stamps in this design each have their own transfer characteristics and there are still some details to be worked out.
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11:16:40am
re: Help with ID
Very interesting!
Man, that "tiny dot" on the position 9 stamp is the quintessential "fly speck"!
The Pony Express private issue stamps are really fun and interesting to plate. There are LOTS of major differences between the various positions. Sometimes, I'll surf them on eBay just for the fun and challenge of plating them. Is also a good way to practice rooting out forgeries.
Cool that you're engaged in sorting all those difference out.
Thanks!
-Paul
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