Cover with doubtful Erivan d cancel at Raritan

Posted on November 19, 2016 by Stefan

This cover is being offered at the current Raritan auction.

When the stamp is placed so clean and nice away from the text I am always curios: was it added later? Because the scan is really low res I will give it the benefit of doubt but I am quite certain that cancel is fake. It also looks more like a revenue document then a letter. But since I cannot read the text I am not sure about this.

You can see how bad the resolution is. In my opinion the auction houses should offer good scans as part of the service so here is some room for improvement. But back to the cancel. The serial character “d” is not showing its typical form with thickening of lines where the “up strike” and the main bode touches. Also the “swing” at top is too thin and missing its thickened part. The dot between month and year is missing too and since the impression is quite clear it should show.

Now I need a high res scan.

Posted in Ebay, Delcampe and Co, Forged | Leave a comment

Fake Cover at Feldman Auctions Nov/Dec 2016

Posted on November 6, 2016 by Stefan

Once and again Armenian items find their way in large auctions. Here is an example of a cover in the current David Feldman auction:

While the cancel looks nice and clean (it is fake too) the 100r HH ruble overprint is a very crude forgery.

When I check the 100r HH overprint the first thing to look at is the base line of the “100r” part of the overprint. The genuine overprint always shows a raised second “0”. You can easily detect 80-90% of all the 100r forgeries with this. Of course there are more errors. The zeros are not tilted, the foot of the “1” is wrong and the shape of the “r” is also wrong. But fake is fake, there is no need to go into more detail once you find the first error.

For more information see my article about the 100r HH overprint in this blog.

Besides this, the lilac “Z” overprint beneath the 100r HH actually looks good. A pity the forger destroyed this nice stamp.

Now that it is clear the cover is fake, let’s check the cancel more thoroughly.

It looks clean and nice. Only detailed inspection shows it is a dangerous forgery. The characters “ERIVAN” are to narrow, the line of the date is not even (it goes up to the right side) and the dot between month and year is missing. Not easy to see if you cant compare directly with a genuine one. I got another card with this fake cancel and a single stamp (charity issue) with an identical 100r HH fake overprint and this fake cancel. I think there are also differences in the upper hook of the serial character compared to the genuine cancel, but I need a better scan or the item itself to really check this.

The description of the auction lot mentions a Holcombe certificate. This is either fake too or another case of the “universal experts” entering terrain there are not really familiar with.

Posted in Ebay, Delcampe and Co, Forged, Ruble | 1 Comment

Corrected Overprints

Posted on September 1, 2016 by Stefan

When stamps got overprinted by hand errors or mistakes occur. I think about mistakes that are not what Ashford/Tchilinghirian describe as “human factor”, like: more or less pressure, angle variations, different mixtures or more or less diluted inks used. I also do not think about the Serebrakian “freaks” like putting four identical overprints on one stamp. What I am having in mind is putting a 3r HH overprint on a stamp were normally only 5r HH overprints would be. Done by a clerk who just used the wrong overprinting device by mistake. Back then, rules (T&A call it schemes) applied which basic stamp was used for a certain overprint. One example is the use of the 3r HH overprint on stamps with 3 Kopeck and 5r HH on stamps with 5 Kopeck face value. This changed sometimes since each time a new issue was prepared they checked the stamps in stock and decided on what to use and they had also to use the stamps were the face value did not respond to a new overprint value. Over the period of the HH Monograms (Ruble overprints) seven (7!) different issues were produced – according to Ashford/Tchilinghirian. There are several known cases of corrected overprints described by T&A and Ceresa. These stamps are not listed in Michel but you can find them in the Liapin catalog with quite high price tags. A last remark: you can also find rare so called OTC (over the counter) productions were overprints would (for a fee) be put on stamps where they did not normally belong. Since this was done officially, the OTC stamps could be used postally and are “legit”, so to speak.

Recently I bought (for quite a lot of money) two stamps of the 3r HH on 5 Kopeck stamp, corrected to 5r HH.

The overprints are clear to see, the 5r beeing of type 2. This stamp is part of the second HH monogram issue. Type 1 and Type 3 of the 5r HH overprint were introduced later.

T&A report that a small quantity of the 5 Kopeck stamps were mistakenly overprinted with the 3r HH monogram but the error was detected and no false stamp was allowed to leak out. Even if the quantity was small they obviously decided not to destroy those stamps but to correct the mistake and use them anyways. There must have been a real shortage of stamps since they valued them so much.

As T&A also writes, the 5r HH overprints was applied in a way, that the 5r part of the new monogram was placed gap of the 3r HH monogram and the new HH as less visible as possible. Probably so that the appearance of the corrected stamp was as clean as possible. This matches to the scan of my stamps.

I wonder how scarce this stamp really is. What was the small quantity in numbers? Does someone own a used copy of this stamp? Did it got used? Was it worth the effort to correct this small quantity of stamps?

Addendum

Ray, it is great to hear from you. I checked the picture of the block of four from you book and made a scan. If you compare the position of the 5 regarding to the horns and bolts my impression is that this is a different stamp. Also the ink at the border seems to be missing on your stamp. It would be something if some of those stamps have found their way to me 🙂

Also the 5 does not touch the 3 like on the lower two stamps.

Posted in Ruble | 1 Comment

Fake Cancels – Some Examples

Posted on August 29, 2016 by Stefan

While browsing a collection a dealer sent me to check I found a couple of forged Erivan cancellations. It is always useful to have some examples in order to train the eye and for comparison.

Type 1 Erivan 30 9 20

The first one was quite prominent in the collection. The date figures are way to big and the ink is unusual, too watery. I found no impression where the type character was readable. Where the date was readable it showed always 30.09.1920. All overprints beneath the cancel are fake too. It looks like the ink of overprint and cancel are identical.

Some forgers love to produce cut out pieces to make the forgery more convincing and probably also more valuable for selling.

Type 2 Kohl-Type Erivan

This forgery matchs the so called Kohl type forgeries. The clear outlines of the overprint and cancel are typical.

Type 3 Smudgy Erivan

The cancel is very unclean and ugly. It is easy to see that this is a forgery. The date figures are wrong too. The overprint is one if the “better” forgeries with the second zero not raised above the “ground line” being the easy giveaway.

Type 4 Thin Erivan

A dangerous forgery. Overall impression: thin lines, watery ink. The date figures show the characteristics of the genuine cancel. The 100r HH overprint is fake too. The 100 Rubles are not bad, just the feet of the “1” tilts to the wrong side, but the HH part is totally different from the genuine one.

Type 5 Unkown Cancel Type k?

At first the cancel does not look that bad. Especially the left part which is easy to see on the plain background.

But the overprint is fake and that means the cancel can not be genuine.

The zeros (“0”) tilt to the wrong side and the second zero is not rised enough. The “r” is too wide open.

Posted in Forged, k60k, Ruble | 1 Comment

Nice Stuff At Raritan

Posted on August 29, 2016 by Stefan

Raritan is one of the auction houses were you can find Armenian items almost every time. The current auction #70 hold some interesting lots. Most prominently three collections to which I will give some remarks.

Lot #250 Surcharges on the Soviet issue Collection

Nice stamps with no obvious forgeries. 47 items with starting price 475 USD is 10 USD per item which seems not too expensive. Some uncommon variants are included, also some stamps with cancellation.

Lot #254 Surcharges on the First Constantinople issue Collection

A really interesting Lot with many uncommon stamps, lots of readable cancellations and also my personal highlight: 15 Goldkopeck narrow on 250 Rubles stamp. When Ashford and Tchilingharian wrote there books back in 1960 they did not list this stamp. Ceresa did describe it in his books and today is the first time I have seen one with a genuine looking cancellation. This means the stamp has been used and is not “only” some OTC (over the counter) or back office production that never has seen real postal. I would happily pay 100 USD for this stamp alone. The cancel is also one of the more uncommon ones making the item even more “adorable”. With a starting price of 700 USD for 50 items the price for each item is a bit higher then in Lot 250, but given the amount of interesting and not common stamps there is, to my mind, room for some bidding.

Lot #255 Collection on Album Pages

This collection of 162 stamps is priced with only 200 USD which gives a kind of low rate of 1,23456 (LOL) USD each item. While browsing the pages of the collection I could see a lot of forgeries but also genuine overprints. The low starting price shows the auction house detected this too and decided not to go with some fantasy starting price like some others do from time to time.

All together a good job of Raritan on those lots and I am looking forward to see how much each lot will achieve in the end.

Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a comment

The Erivan Pictorials

Posted on May 31, 2016 by Stefan

I am working on a sub page presenting the stamps and overprints of the Erivan Pictorial Issue. You can find it on the mene right under Stamp Issues or you follow this link: The Erivan Pictorial Issue

This is work in progress.

Posted in Uncategorized | 5 Comments

Armenian stamps used in Georgia

Posted on April 4, 2016 by Stefan

Armenian stamps, created by applying handstamped overprints on Tsarists stamps, were used as base stamps for issues in Georgia and Transcaucasia. A further overprint was applied to create a new issue.

In case of the Transcaucasian issue in April 1923 a star overprint was used.

The stamp shown features an E.6 type framed Z overprint. On the back side is a genuine mark of the Soviet Philatelic Association which shines through at the lower right corner. The stamps with the star overprints where used mostly in Baku since there was a shortage of stamps at this time. A couple of different Armenian stamps with star overprints exist. Like most material from that time the star overprints have been massively forged. The historical circumstances of the star issue (remaining stock from all three members of the Federation were requested and sent to Tiflis for overprinting/stamping) suggest that no over the counter productions or rare overprints were used. If you find unusual overprints in unusual colors, it is most likely fake.

The Georgians used Armenian stamps as part of a somewhat “enigmatic” (like Ceresa called it) issue in 1923. It probably was an emergency issue and so far has been only reported to be used in Tiflis.

One of the open questions about this issue is why the overprint is only 15.000 rubles when postal rates at this time go from 75.000 rubles for a local postcard to 500.000 rubles for a foreign registered letter [Ceresa]. The Liapin catalog (which represents Zakiyans research) as well as Ceresa only list the 15.000 rubles overprint on the 5r HH on 15 Kopeck. Other combinations are most likely fake. If you own those please send me a scan. Even if the chance is very slim, it is still possible combinations exist that were previously not known.

Here are scans I got from a reader of this blog which show unusual Armenian overprints (red ink!) and are fake.

Posted in Uncategorized | 2 Comments

Forged cover on ebay

Posted on February 19, 2016 by Stefan

A reader of my blog sent my the link to an auction with the question what I think of that item. So let us take a look.

The seller uses a low starting price – which is a bit strange. But perhaps he got it cheap and is unsure about covers from Armenia. He describes the cover as very scarce, which indicates in my eyes that he thinks the cover is genuine.

The front side looks a bit unclean on the left side, but paper and handwriting look legit. It is addressed to Tiflis. I do not like the registration label – it is probably genuine itself, but looks like it was not part of the cover back then. The cancel is also a bit off.

The backside show several stamps and the Aleksandropol cancel is seen with he “b” character. This is not one of the usual types used then and when you look at the front side you see the “x” instead of an asterisk. I have seen that one! Here is a blog entry I made about that cancel.

The receiver cancel of Tiflis is probably genuine – at least the part not on the stamp. You can see how unclean the part is where it enters the stamp.

If that is not enough, the overprints are crude forgeries too. This “hollow” version of the 100 r HH overprint is really ugly.

Posted in Ebay, Delcampe and Co, Forged | 1 Comment

Thoughts about new lots at Raritan

Posted on February 10, 2016 by Stefan

The current auction (#68) at Raritan lists some lots from Armenia. While the some (e.g. the pictorial color proofs) look genuine, there are others which are outright fake or dubious.

The framed Z on 1 Kopek should always be examined with great caution. The base stamp was used for the k60k overprint. Tchilinghirian/Ashford do not list this overprint on the 1 Kopeck stamp. The only possible reason for an existing item would be an over the counter production. I have not seen a genuine one so far.

Even with the low resolution of the scan it is obvious that that is a fake overprint.

It is not as easy with the cover and the newspaper items.

Let us start with the cover. The script and paper look legit. General appearance is like a genuine item.

When looking more carefully, doubts arise. The cancel on the front side looks quite uneven, but I would still give it the benefit of doubt.

The big giveaway is the backside. The 35K overprints are fake (wrong shape and ink) and the cancel is wrong. The part from 3 o’clock to 6 o’clock is probably genuine but the remaining 3 quarters are clearly forged.

Conclusion: genuine stampless cover with added forged stamps and cancel. You need not to be an expert for Armenian stamps to see this.

More complicated are the newspaper items. They should generally be viewed with caution. It is always a temptation for forgers to make a valuable item from several cheap original ones. My experience with the newspapers is: genuine newspaper + genuine stamp + genuine overprint and forged cancel (at least the part on the paper).

Here an example.

A pity the resolution is so low. I think the auction houses could do better. They need to make a scan either way and why not provide a link to a high resolution scan as download? That would be not much extra work and is an excellent service for all potential customers.

I do not like the appearance of the cancel in general, but even with the low resolution given you can see the wrong shape of the character “she”.

In my opinion the other newspaper items are at least doubtful, most likely forged. More could be said with better scans or the items on my desk.

Take care!

Posted in Forged | 2 Comments

Modern forgeries

Posted on December 8, 2015 by Stefan

Got a mail from a dealer regarding this item, which is clearly fake. A typical example of the modern (around 2000) cancel forgeries apparently origination in Armenia. A first giveaway is the blank cover. The forger did not finish his work on this item. I already collected one or two handful of those cancel forgeries. Once you are aware of this type and have seen several you spot them quite easy. The ink color and style, unclean appearance are always the same. I bought it at the end in order to show it here.

The cancel details.

The ink is wrong and uneven applied. Characters and date figures incorrect.

Btw, this type of the Novo Bayasets cancel is very rare. If you own an item with this cancel I would love to get a high resolution scan.

Add: Here some examples from the collection in the Gallery.

I got the same fake cancel on a cut out piece. Bought it on the web (Delcampe or eBay) from a seller from Armenia. Very unclean appearance. Characters and date figures wrong. General measurements near to genuine.

Again unclean and kinda fuzzy. The date figures are dizzy and different from the genuine ones.

And one more.

The stamps and overprints are genuine – from what I have seen so far. I do not think the cancels were made using printers. Toner prints look different – you get to see the particles when zooming in and ink printed cancels do not look so unclean and uneven (ink-wise).

Perhaps a cliche was made from bronze or gum?

Posted in Uncategorized | 1 Comment

Stamps Of Armenia