It is no secret that most of the stamps from Armenia offered on eBay and Co. are forgeries. This lot is no exception.
Let’s have a look at the stamps. All overprints are crude forgeries and the rectangular and star fantasy cancels are a well known and safe indicators for faked overprints too. See Tchilinghirian and Ceresa.
The seller offers a scan of the back side too and you can see he is not lying when he says the stamps are signed.
Of course a sign can be applied by everyone. In this case someone made a pencil sign. It has no value whatsoever since we already know all overprints and cancels are fake. Besides, it is not a known signature of an expert. And in case of Armenia there are a lot of signatures (of experts too) and only very few indicate a genuine stamp and overprint.
Interesting (and a bit sad) is to see how a simple pencil sign brings several bidders to offer (and in one case spend) more than 120 USD on material which is worthless fakes. I wrote the seller while the auction was still open and explained that he offers fakes and sent a link to this site so he can see I know what I speak about. I got no reaction.
The seller writes: “Each lot is sold as Genuine unless otherwise described”. Also on his me-site: “I have been collection stamps for 30 years and since 2004 I have been selling stamps on ebay as a business.” A collector for over 30 years and a professional seller should be aware of the fakes situation regarding different collection areas. Each catalog (Michel, Scott etc) has remarks in the sections if forgeries are present.
So my message to the bidders is, either learn about your collection area or rather spent 10 USD for an instant opinion that 123 USD for crap. You are welcome to use this service!
These are all well known and described forgeries, see Tchilighirian & Ashford series and Ceresa series. The 10 R, 25 R., 50 R., and 100 R. HH forged overprints are included in the next two forgery guides, Nos. 32/33 and 34/35. Even if they were not forgeries, the lot is not as described “Armenia Transkaukasia 1919-20 M&U collection signed 31 stamps” since this lot is all cancelled stamps and NO MINT. If I had been the successful bidder I would have returned the lot as “NOT As Described”
Thank you for this post. Making a mistake is human, but purposely disregarding your educated comments (backed up by your own serious references) is to be dishonnest. Actually this seller is a crook, let’s call a spade a spade…
This kind of behaviour is doing a great disservice to the reputation of Ebay.
By the way, your website is really great and I enjoy it a lot. Thank you for the nice job!
Maxime
Tchilingrian and Ashford illustrated the forged postmarks in Part One (page 6) of Postage Stamps of Armenia – published in 1953. So sixty years later, word has still not reached ebay.
A big part of the problem is that there are clearly collectors ( I have met some) who don’t worry very much about what they are collecting – genuine, forged – it’s all the same to them. They just want things to fill an album or things they can exhibit which other people haven’t got. Sad but true.
Continue the good work!
I too noticed this auction and was in shock to see the final price. I am also thankful for this site, because much of what I know regarding forgeries I learned here.
Keep up the good work!