Beryllium Guy
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Posts: 5,654 
What I collect: Worldwide Stamps 1840-1930
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Post by Beryllium Guy on Sept 25, 2018 10:20:33 GMT
As I mentioned in the other St. Lucia thread, when going through a lot of 19th Century stamps from the colony, I was checking the watermarks for identification, as all stamps of this early design should have either a "Small Star" (Scott Wmk 5) or "Crown over CC" (Scott Wmk 1). I found a total of five stamps that had no watermarks at all, so after my last couple of years reading Nelson's (@falshung ) great posts, I was suspicious! First I checked on Nelson's website, but did not find anything on St. Lucia, so then I did a search and came up with this one: stampforgeries.com/forged-stamps-of-st-lucia/I could tell as soon as I looked at the images on the site that I was looking at five imposters! How dare they do that to our beautiful Queen Victoria!? zipper , I will stand up for Victoria's honor, never fear! The imposters must be unmasked for all to see their treachery! OK, enough theatrics....  Left or First Image: St. Lucia, Scott #11, 1-penny, non-denominated, deep black definitive stamp. Perf 14 and Crown & CC watermark (both checked). Right or 2nd Image: blackish-gray forgery, maybe by Spiro based on similar images on the aforementioned website, but unclear. No watermark was found and the paper is quite rough and porous-looking, and the perfs are very rough, as can readily be seen. I did not attempt to measure them. Both stamps came from the same collection and were acquired by me a few weeks ago from the local dealer here in France. He gave me a very fair package price for buying many album pages at one time, so I don't think I had any financial loss as a result of this discovery. I will post more images a little later. |
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Beryllium Guy
Moderator
Posts: 5,654
What I collect: Worldwide Stamps 1840-1930
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Post by Beryllium Guy on Sept 25, 2018 11:06:21 GMT
Here are the next couple of hooligans in our rogues' gallery!  1st Image: St. Lucia, Scott #14, 1-shilling, non-denominated, deep orange definitive stamp. Perf 14 and Crown & CC watermark (both checked). 2nd & 3rd Images: red forgeries, look similar to the one in the previous post. No watermarks, porous paper, spotty printing, and very rough perfs (unmeasured). I do not have any genuine, red-colored stamps from this design type, which are 1-penny, non-denominated, but Michael ( Londonbus1 ) has posted an image of one on the other thread. Edit: And now Nelson (@falshung) has added an excellent resolution image of one of the genuine red stamps (surcharged) in a newer post. Thanks, Nelson! |
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Sept 25, 2018 18:24:54 GMT
First, I checked on Nelson's website, but did not find anything on St. Lucia, so then I did a search and came up with this one: I could tell as soon as I looked at the images on the site that I was looking at five imposters.... I have 2 things - 1. about 60-75 different forgeries of St-Lucia. 2. More pressing matters to complete first
BUT - Here is the REAL thing - SG15 
There are about 10-12 different "types" of forgeries. Several like those printed in India are really bad and primitive. The 3 main "better" ones fall into 3 groups, Oneglia, Spiro, and an unknown (perhaps Torres?).  Oneglia Typical - it is engraved and has an oil-based watermark but has a lot of missing details. Spiro Typical
Lots of missing details - note the key S of St. is too high in all of them. Lithographed, perf 13, no wmk.
Unknown Lots of missing details, thick letters - note the key S of St. is too LOW in all of them.
NOW the main key to all of these forgeries that applies to all the real issues I have seen. The real ones generally tend to have most of the perfs cut close or into the image or show signs of adjoining stamps, the fakes tend to have clean margins.
Moderator Note: Forgery images source: stampforgeries.com/forged-stamps-of-st-lucia/ |
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Post by Deleted on Sept 25, 2018 18:30:04 GMT
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Beryllium Guy
Moderator
Posts: 5,654
What I collect: Worldwide Stamps 1840-1930
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Post by Beryllium Guy on Sept 25, 2018 19:38:15 GMT
First I checked on Nelson's website, but did not find anything on St. Lucia, so then I did a search and came up with this one: Both stamps came from the same collection, and were acquired by me a few weeks ago from the local dealer here in France. He gave me a very fair package price for buying many album pages at one time, so I don't think I had any financial loss as a result of this discovery. I will post more images a little later. I have 2 things - 1. about 60-75 different forgeries of St-Lucia. 2. More pressing matters to complete first Nelson, thanks for your comments. I tagged you so that you would be prompted to take a look! Please don't misunderstand my original post--it was intended to be a compliment to you. I always check your site first when it comes to looking for info on classic forgeries. I can totally understand if St. Lucia was not a high priority, especially now that I see that there are so many forgeries, in fact. I just wanted you to know that I always check your site first, as I see you as the "go-to guy" for these sorts of things. From reading your posts, I see now that some of the other forgeries have even attempted to replicate the watermarks, so although it was the first and strongest clue in my case that something was amiss, I see now that simply checking for a watermark is not a fool-proof method. Thank you for clarifying that. Anyway, I am not trying to preempt you, Nelson. I am just showing what I found, and I am truly grateful for all the help I have always received from you which led me to suspect that these stamps were not genuine when I noticed the lack of watermarks. Before joining TSF, I never had a clue about all of these classic forgeries. If I had, I might never have decided to specialize in collecting the classics in the first place, but responsibility for that is completely on me! Edit: I should also add that the quality of the images in your posts is usually the best on TSF. I have nothing to compete with it, and I am doing worse now than before, as I have elected not to buy a scanner of my own during my time in France, so I am dependent on what I can find to do the job. I adjust the settings to the best I can figure out, but it is clear that the quality is not as good as what I was able to do before, and nowhere near as good as what you (Nelson) do, or that Jim ( jkjblue ) does. |
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Post by Deleted on Sept 25, 2018 21:28:01 GMT
Nelson, thanks for your comments. I tagged you so that you would be prompted to take a look! Is is good that you should check any sites that have forgery info. My own info comes from 1000+ books/journals/articles, a dozen specific area experts, 30+ foreign forums I attend and many member contacts worldwide. I probably have some 15M forgeries still on file.
The time note is simply that to do any justice to an area requires weeks/months of research so I try to do some that may be of interest to some collectors as opposed to an article on very rare issues no one has - Hawaiian Missionaries anyone? What most collectors are not aware of is that between 1840 & 1900 forgeries, fakes, alterations, bogus issues are more numerous that the originals.
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Post by Deleted on Sept 26, 2018 1:04:44 GMT
A few more of the 2 main forgery types in my files   |
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