Samoa: First Issue

Perf12  Thanks much, it looks like that will give me enough info to weed out most of the bad ones.
I'm assuming these were rather crude to begin with.  I will need to see good scans of the originals and the fakes to feel somewhat comfortable with my assessment of them.   Shouldn't be to hard to find them on the net

Page 2 of the tutorial : 

Alex's  easy "spot the difference!"


As well as having perfs all round   the reprints and the forgeries are usually stronger brighter colours than the originals.

I find that I can spot all three from any decent scan on ebay simply by concentrating on the "M" in Samoa.

The reprints have a normal "M" with a rather long serif top right and usually a tiny dot of colour under the "V" of the letter.

The M in each of the two common forgeries is clumsy. In one type the right leg leans inwards, and in the other it has a rather heavy right foot. 

In addition for one forgery type the white line over "X" is continuous, In the other type the pearls in the lower arc touch the white line under "E X" 


Now if you have got that and can sort the reprints State IV and the 2 Forgeries, lets look at the rest.

Has the stamp got a blind top edge or a blind bottom edge ?



 



  

Very good info. thanks !!

Here is my Samoa Forgery 2, I believe - waiting for your comments

René

Thanks  Alex

What about the "Palms" series Sc 9d etc whih I have a few - should they be under scrutiny also ? Thanks for the tutorial 

René

The Samoa Express  Tutorial page 4   .. The real McCoy!


By the way these are not "EXPRESS" mail stamps . The name simply derives from the local Newspaper whose proprietor produced them ostensibly to mail his newspaper to Auckland, Sydney and San Francisco. Only a dozen still exist on piece or cover and are rare indeed.  I don't have any, but keep looking.

 
So now you have done your home work with Antonius' selection, and like Rene you can confidently spot the imposters. what about the regular issues ?

They will almost certainly have a blind top edge or bottom edge (with a very few exceptions to spoil this rule)

The STATE I or first issue 1877
one penny, threepence and sixpence were printed in sheets of 20 so with in this group it is possible to find 6 of the 20 perf all round  Scarce ! 
The colours are paler than any reprints or forgeries. The line over X is continuous white line ( but so is forgery1)


 


Cancels   The first issued were cancelled with the date in black pen manuscript until a datestamp  "Month, day +Year" arrived as in my penny blue above. The cancel on the six pence is unusual as it was struck in Fiji not Samoa. 



  

In STATE III   ( and the later STATE IV) The line over "X" is crudely repaired 






 

I am certain that I do not have any of these issues. I think the info will help me to verify other older issues I have . It gives me many clues at what to look for when trying in confirm authenticity. An additional reference ressource for me. Thank you for sharing.


David

Rene , all of these will perfectly genuine. As far as I know no one needed to forge these. 

They seem to be perf 11.  I think the 4d blue must be Scott 16e or f . not 24 of course.


The problems with the palm trees arise in the perf 12 ½  watermarks. There are 3 spacings of Wmk 62 (4mm 6mm and 7mm) but that will not arise in your stamps which will have 7mm spacing.

Except for some Scott 20-22 surcharges and irregular faking of covers there are no forgeries

Well I collected  Denmark for 30 years so consider myself a Viking,  and Eck is one of the many Scots nicknames for Alexander .

I usually use  Alex 

Frustration and disappointment. 😫

Last month I found a seller in Poland who had half a Dozen Express for sale, one was a forgery, two were the usual common reprints and four ( one of which was damage) were originals. All were highly priced, some obviously way over the top as the seller was unfamiliar with the stamps and had not read my tutorial. 😃😃😃

I wrote an an account explaining the problem issues and negotiated a discounted deal on 2 genuine ones. International bank transfer of GB£ to zlotys, and the sender would dispatch by registered tracked mail. 

We we wait and I trackon line for 8 days . Bingo it arrived Wednesday at Aberdeen Distribution centre! Which is 1.5 miles away.

this a.M. “incomplete address . Returned to sender”.    WAAAGH!

it is on its way back to Poland.

Every so often a Samoa EXPRESS stamp turns up , and sadly 99% of the time it is not genuine.   


First let me say that only a dozen items are known of Samoa EXPRESS on cover , so the chances of this being one are slim!



   

1. There were two early Samoa Post Offices . The original EXPRESS stamps were used between 1877 and 1880 then the office of Mr Agar closed down.

2. Perf on 4 sides , and an example in STATE IV it has to be a reprint made between 1885 to 1892 .

3.A different Post office, by Royal charter of King Malietoa, was opened by Mr Davis in 1886. His stamps had Palm trees but were cancelled in blue ink from 1887-1891 with the postmark  seen on this cover.

4 Most of the Europeans were German and German script in the 19th Century is quite different from English or American handwriting. The creator of this cover has tried to imitate Gothic print and failed.

5. Mr Davis the postmaster was not above doing favours for friends and using his office handstamp to cancel items handed over the counter, and back dating obsolete items. 

vikingeck  I found this today in an envelope of mixed stamps that i had apparently not yert looked at while I was poking around looking for some intriguing material for Beryllium Guy

 It has been on an envelope (it appears ) and also top left corner, looks like it got semi-stuck to another stamp over the years

reprint (probably maybe?), fake? or real deal  (unlikely, perf 4 sides).... (I'm asking you to be the judge!!)

The two pence was never issued for use .my immediate reaction was “this is a reprint.” However I cannot be certain. Remainder sheets of 21 Will produce 5 stamps perf on 4 sides.
The shade here, a kind of brownish vermillion rather than bright pink , is unusual for reprints and might incline me to think remainder might be a possibility.

As khj points out there are State IV remainders. These were genuine orders delivered to the post office as it was closed down. They were thus leftovers unused, “remainders” they are scarce and can cause confusion as they may be difficult to distinguish from worthless reprints. The gum is an indicator as khj states.

Can you scan the back please?

As many of you know I have collected these in a specialised way for many years.

Up on eBay 90% will be reprints , 9% will be one or the other forgery types. Most times I ignore these on eBay but just occasionally irritation gets the better of prudence when I see a fake being blatantly puffed as “ultra Rare “ and I send the seller a message suggesting his listing is not as described.

Today this happened with 4 lots from seller robbi_7260 here in the Uk. ( I name and shame him deliberately)

I sent polite emails indicating his £600 etc items were forgeries worth 50p and explaining why .

Boy did I get abuse! A torrent of rudeness with Thinly disguised expletives , and repeating his claims that he only sold genuine , not reprints and no forgeries!


So instead of leaving him with advice to correct his mistake, ( or deliberate deceit) I have now upped the ante and reported his abuse ( and forgeries) to eBay.


Genuine errors of ID on these are understandable, most I ignore. On previous occasions my expertise has been accepted but Mr robbi_7260’s attitude issues are sadly contemptible. I wait to see if his items remain listed following my complaint to eBay.