A SPECIAL OF PHILATELIC EXPERTS,
More information on forgery identification and stamp expertizing.

Modern British Commonwealth
FORGED POSTMARKS

THE BRITISH CASE
Modern (in this case: 1960s onwards) stamps from the smaller countries of the British Commonwealth are often difficult to find in used condition. The same applies to many other tiny countries as well. Their use of stamps is comparatively insignificant and collector demand for cancelled modern stamps is very limited. Nobody could manage to get the flood of post-1960 new issues obliterated, so most collectors take mint stamps, which are easily available.

But if a customer would ask for such stamps used the dealers rarely have anything to offer, with the exception of one British dealer. At least from the early 1990s he offered virtually all modern British Commonwealth stamps both mint and used. It turned out, however, that all the hard to get used copies bought had forged cancellations. Maybe these stamps (without gum) originally were unsaleable hinged mint ones.

It appears that the forger only had a limited number of different markers available, because those seen were used indiscriminately on stamps from any country. E.g.. stamps from Kiribati were cancelled with a Valletta, Malta, date stamp. Actually, this was the rule rather than the exception – therefore he applied smudged corner postmarks. Of course the dates would not have fitted either. But as each whole set was cancelled in the same way it has been possible to decipher the following sample postmarks, cf. large illustration. There are certainly more.

1. Bahamas, 1965 2. Port Moresby 3. Rhodesia, 1953 4. ... Island 5. Post Office, 1983 6. Tortola 7. Victoria, Seychelles 8. Valletta

(Click for larger image.)

The hand stamps are probably made of old time zincographs. It is possible that the forger only had partial devices and that no full strikes can exist. The date, when not chiselled out, is fixed. Sometimes the place name is also made illegible. The types of the postmarks are usually too old (pre-1960) for the stamps in question – used on older items too? A general advice: try to check if the name of the post office fits the stamp.


THE AMERICAN CASE
The January 1996 issue of The American Philatelist contained a fake alert regarding forged post-war British Commonwealth postmarks. Attached are all the images of the original impressions. The countries involved are: Antigua, Bahamas, Barbados, Cape of Good Hope, Bermuda, Br. Guiana, Br. Honduras, Cayman Is., Dominica, St. Lucia, Falkland Is., Fiji, Gambia, Grenada, Jamaica, Malta, Mauritius, Montserrat, N. Rhodesia, St. Kitts, St. Vincent, Seychelles, Somaliland, Swaziland, Solomon Is., Trinidad, Turks & Caicos Is., Br. Virgin Is.

This is not the same forger as the British one. These forgeries are more dangerous as the convincing postmarks (45 different) were probably applied to the correct stamps in full or large part strikes, or on items of postal history. The illustrations show mainly complete postmarks. The British West Indies dominate, so the devices, which have fixed dates, were presumably made in the USA, where most of the fakes certainly would be located. The American Philatelist only says that the devices were found in the estate of a deceased dealer in British area material.


The Madame Joseph books are outstanding sources regarding pre-1945 forged British Empire postmarks.

Copyright © 2007–2010 by G. Kock
Forged German postmarks, Finnish, earlier cases, worldwide.  More forgery monographs.
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