In the last entry about the fake covers in the Raritan auction was a reduced cover with a forged Erivan ‘d’ cancel. Apparently that is not the only case a reduced cover was pimped up. Here are two reduced covers offered by the German auction house Georg Bühler which is located in Berlin. The starting prices are quite low, which makes me wonder, if they knew something is wrong with the items…

Item 1: cover from Erivan to Tiflis 11.11.1921

The cover is reduced at the right side where the original stamp was most likely located. The stamps that can be seen were added later by the forger. Also, war charity stamps were not used in postal transportation in Armenia. At least, so far no usage has been documented. That would make this a real rarity.

The 100r HH overprint is obviously fake.

The cancel is a rather dangerous forgery of the Erivan ‘d’.

Item 2: cover from Erivan to Tiflis 22.11.1920

The cover itself looks genuine. It bears the well known address of Mr. Serebrakian. The overprints on the stamp are most likely genuine – no obvious or crude forgery is present.

Again the cover is reduced at the right side. Most likely to get rid of the original franking. Perhaps it was damaged or a collector had removed the stamps… All present stamps were added later.

The forged Erivan ‘d’ cancel.

Conclusion

The forged cancels are good efforts on part of the forger. I consider them quite dangerous. Shape and ink are well done.

Covers need careful examinations. All parts – paper, address, franking – need to be checked. If something looks fishy – like the cover being reduced at the place where the original franking was most likely located – and then a very colorful franking has been added – the alarm bells should ring.

Extra hint: the genuine Erivan ‘d’ cancel shows one (!) dot between month and year.