Stamps Of Armenia

This week a well know seller offered several Armenian stamps on eBay. He is member of APS and APEX and – as far as I know – expert for Russian stamps. Both things are good news for the potential buyer. The codex of the societies does not allow to knowingly sell forgeries.

The important thing is to read and understand the “sell it strictly on AS IS basis” passage of the text attached to the images.

For those that do not know: this means, the seller offers the goods as is, meaning he takes no responsibility for the offered goods and the buyer should know if and how much he bids by himself. While the only thing he gets for him to make a decision is an image.

Why would the seller do this? One reason is, he is not familiar with the Armenian overprints and simply does not know if a given stamp/overprint is good or not. And he is honest enough to admit it. This is not a remote possibility, we all know about the many forgeries. Another reason is, the seller is well aware about the fact that the stamp he is offering is fake, but he looks for a buyer who is not knowledgeable enough to see the forgery as such and tries to make a bargain (buy cheap).

Again and again I am taken aback about how many bids so many obvious fake items get. And here we have an honest seller who says “AS IS”. You have been warned.

I can remember when I started collecting Armenian stamps. Back then, I spent way too much money on forgeries. I needed to get a certain amount of stamps as basic collection to be able to work with the literature. Once you have seen a genuine item and studied it in comparison to a forged one, you learn to see the differences. And more and more you will learn to distinguish the good ones from the bad ones. A real problem are the rare overprints you do not see often (or kind of never). When such an item is offered you have nothing to compare it too.

For instance the red 50 (Goldkopecks) on 25.000 rubles.

How do you know if this is fake? If the overprint is extremely crude you can see this when comparing with pictures in the literature. The problem is, the literature available does not feature high quality pictures.

But there is another thing that you can do, and that is not too hard. The first thing to check is the basic (underlying) stamp onto which the overprint is applied. If this stamp is fake, the overprint is fake too.

This stamp is a forgery (the easy to spot reprint type). In this case there are two ease marks:

1. the border line is unclear with color spots outside

2. the vertical lines on the right side are not parallel where the end just below the decoration

There are several more examples where a lot of bidders gave offers an stamps, where even with the small scan you can see that the basic stamp is a forgery.

The overprint does also not even resemble the genuine one in the slightest bit (very wrong, unlike the genuine one). And even easier to spot: the basic stamp is a forgery.

Also an overprint on a forgery. Someone bid over 40 bucks on this fake item.

There was quite some activity on this item.

With exception of the bidder “0***o” the highest bid from a experienced (more then 100 feedbacks) buyer was 10 USD.  Which shows the bidders were cautions. You can be sure, there are several bidders worldwide (me included) who would bid much more if this item would have been genuine. For my taste 40 bucks is still way too much for this garbage item.

Another forged stamp.

And one more forged stamp.

In this case we have a genuine stamp, but the overprint is fake (ink, shape of the “0”).

And finally a genuine stamp with a genuine overprint.

tl;dr  (conclusion)

For the buyer the term “AS IS” means: buy only if you know what you are buying! If unsure, or the item is too cheap to be true: the item is FAKE!

PS:  One more thing. From my experience Scott catalog prices regarding Armenia do not reflect the real rarity of the stamps. Do not be surprised if a knowledgeable seller requests much more or even less than what is given in Scott. As a rule of thumb: Do not use Scott for Armenia. A much better – even if not perfect – alternative is the Liapin catalog.

From time to time an exotic or rather uncommon item sells on eBay or another online auction platform.  In this case the following “cover” caught my interest.

On the first view a cover with no address is presented featuring what seems to be a whole set of stamps. Since no address is on the cover it is clear this item never traveled and was not used postally. The next thing that comes to mind is, the stamps look like a set of the 3rd issue (Erivan Issue) but have “wrong” colors. Indeed it is a set of the so-called color proofs. Of course those items were not valid for postal use but it is thinkable that this sheet was prepared as kind of philatelic memorial. The last thing that caught my eye was the strange cancel, which I never met before, but more about this later.

Let’s check the facts of the purchase.

Apparently the item was sold for about 400 USD. This is not cheap, but postally used covers go between 1000 and 2000 USD, so it is not expensive either compared to real used covers. It is more or less in the range of used parcel sheets from the Transcaucasian time. Starting price was 1 GBP and 32 bids from 12 different bidders were made. This is not shabby. This item certainly inspired quite an interest. It is nice to see so many collectors of Armenian stamps are active.

Let’s check the bid history.

We see that – as most of the time – bidding in earnest goes on the last day.  Also, we see that the high bids came from bidders with more than 1000 ratings. This means they are active and experienced eBay members and presumably also experienced collectors. Obviously at least two active eBay member were ready to pay a solid amount of money.

At this time we need to check the available literature for more insight. Let us start with the stamps. This set of color proofs belong to the stamps of the third pictorials issue which was made in Erivan. At this time the Bolshevist forces ruled and we can find Bolshevist signs (star, hammer and sickle) and slogans (in Armenian language) in the design of these stamps. The issue was ready for use at the 10th of October in 1922. This matches the date on the cancel 3rd of October 1922 for the proofs. What really strikes me as something out of the ordinary is the cancel. This type of cancel Erivan Sh is NOT listed in:

• Postage stamps of Armenia by Tchilinghirian/Ashford
• Imperial Russian stamps used in Transcauscasia by Ashford
• Postage stamps of Armenia by Sakiyan/Saltikoff 1988
• Poststamps, Fiscal Stamps, Postage cancels by Sakiyan 2003

The cancel itself seems to be evenly shaped (round circle) with clean imprint and straight letters. So far the good signs. But especially the grating with the narrow lines make my “forgery” senses tingle. The usage of such fine lines is extremely rare if not unseen at this time. There is a known forgery of the Batum cancel from 1920 which features the same gratings.

In favor of the Erivan cancel: the size of the date is not as unreasonable small as with the Batum one.

Conclusion

A very nice item with a rare variation of the 3rd pictorial issue set and a cancellation which has to be considered as highly doubtful.

Cherrystone is one of the larger auction houses in the stamps business and specialized in material from Russia including former territories. This includes Armenia and often nice lots are offered.

The March 2014 auction includes lot number 196. The first thing that attracts attention is the high price tag of 24.000 USD. The item offered is a cover which apparently traveled from Allaverdi to Erevan. The cancel used is Allaverdi-Tiflis, which alone is already quite rare, but does not explain the high price tag. Indeed it is the stamp which makes the cover a real rarity. The stamps of the First Constantinople Issue were not used without an overprint. With just one exception, the 25 ruble stamp. Still this issue is a little bit doubtful, no cover exists and there are no documents in the archives which describe this action was taken.

Which means: if this cover is genuine, it would be a real rarity.

Let’s have a look at the item.

The first impression: very clean, perfect cancel impression. The practiced eye sees more, but lets do this step by step.

I browsed my collection and reference items for this cancellation and found the following items.

A stamps with this cancel with the date 11.08.1922.

And a cover with cancel bearing the date 16.10.1924.This cover is very useful because it is from the Soviet times. There are no forgeries of items of this time known – probably because there is and was no market for such things. Also, the cancel impression is perfect. Which made this item a candidate for my collection of reference items.

When comparing the reference impression with the item in question, there can be no doubt, the cancel is forged.

A few of the most obvious differences.

• 1 through 4
  The characters are distorted. There is a dent in the “P” character.
• 5 and 6
  The first digit is to small, you can check the “1” on the stamp cancel and while the real first “1” is distorted it has a different shape. The “2” is too thick and also distorted.
• 7
  The dot is too large.
• 8
  The horizontal line is not thick enough and the inner circle way to thick.

If you check the cancels from this time you will find the ink, while sometimes more watered down and sometimes oily, always has a certain impression on the paper which can be seen quite good if you enlarge a high resolution scan. With time you can see this with good light just with the eyes. I know that auction houses employ specialist who are checking stamps for years. I would expect an experienced dealer to at least be able to see that this cancel is fishy and need in detail check. You can do better Cherrystone. I know it.

PS: I checked the Zakyian book and found this picture:

This looks exactly like the cover in the auction and is probably the same item. If you take a closer look you can see the remains of red or lilac writing. Just like with the scan from Cherrystone. This is one of the few errors in the book from Zakyian. He still is one of the serous source and generally a very good expert. To this day the work of Tchilinghirian stands out as one of the most trustworthy and solid sources and I still admire the effort and diligence he took to only present as genuine what he really could prove.

I got a request of a collector who is looking to buy this stamp. So first thing I did was checking my collection. This is what I found:

Not so many. Only 5 pieces. After that I checked the literature. Just while Michel lists certain stamp does not mean it really exists. That is what I found:

At the end of the list of the 100r HH monogram overprinted stamps you usually find this stamp. And it has always quite a high price tag, which is an indication hat this stamp is probably rare. Michel list it as number … (I wont list the number, because Michel owns the rights and I have heard they prosecute you if you use them in public.) The Liapin catalog lists this stamp as number 89 with a price tag of 700 Euro. Tchilinghirian and Ceresa list this stamp as part of the 6th issue of the HH monograms Februar to March 1921. Tchilinghirian gives a price of 30/- which is one of the highest I have seen in his catalog. Ceresa gives a price tag of 5 pounds, but this is quite old (I think from around 1980) and Ceresa generally prices all items extremely low for my taste. Catalog values for covers show 20 pounds and at auctions you have to shell out way over 1000 Euro.

At this point we know the stamp with this overprint most likely exists. Next to do is check my stamps.

The first stamp.    

A weak imprint which is not usual and makes checking the overprint harder. A quick glance shows:

• Second zero raised → check
• Second zero inside smaller → looks that way, kinda hard to tell for sure though
• Both zeros tilt to left → check
• Large space between one and zero → check
• r(uble) wide and not closed → looks that way, kinda hard to tell for sure though

Conclusion: a candidate for a genuine overprint, but needs mot detailed inspection (shape upper part etc.)

The second stamp.

This one is easy. It is a fake. Shape of the “1” is wrong. Second zero not smaller, no tilting but most prominent: it is the “p” type of the 100r fakes.

Tchilinghirian lists this as forgery number 167. You can easily see the “r” is closed and looks like a “p”.

The third stamp.

That is another “p” type forgery. Nice example.

The fourth Stamp.

This again is not so easy. A first glance shows the ink looks strange – especially the zeroes. It does not cover the underground equally, but has like vertical stripes. I made a high resolution scan, rotated the clipping til the “1” was upright and put in some lines and arrows.

Now it looks even more wrong than before. The second zero is above the base line but the shape is wrong. Also the shape of the “r” is missing the ball, the end of the H misses the pointy peak and the thickening of the S is not there.

Sometimes it is very helpful to check on detail against one form a genuine overprint.Now you can see that the “r” is even below the base line!

This is a forgery. I could not assign this to one of the forgery types illustrated by Tchilinghirian.

The fifth stamp.

Again an easy one. This is a forgery. Hollow H, way to thick figures “100”, overall shape simply wrong. Again no assignment to the Tchilinghirian forgery types possible. While two of them show the thick figures, other attributes differ.

Except for one stamp all overprints are fake and that one is not an easy candidate. I got a scan from a fellow collector with his 100r on 7r overprinted stamps. Ten more candidates to examine in detail. The collector I got those from owns one of the largest collections worldwide (as far as known to me). So again that says something about the rarity of those overprint / base stamp combination.

The first stamp.

And the “100r” in detail. The resolution of the scan does not allow higher zoom in. At this point we could do with more.

Let us do the checks:

• Second zero raised → check
• Second zero inside smaller → looks that way, also shape looks good, check
• Both zeros tilt to left → looks that way, kinda hard to tell for sure though
• Large space between one and zero → check
• r(uble) wide and not closed → looks that way, kinda hard to tell for sure though

The HH monogram in detail and a genuine one.

It look quite close to the genuine one. Due to the different scanners used and the different resolutions of the scan, it is hard to deliver a final judgement.

Conclusion: a candidate for a genuine overprint, but needs mot detailed inspection.

The second stamp.It is a forgery. Very crude, easy to spot. Probably Tchilinghirian type F171.

The third stamp.First impression: looks good. The detailed comparison again suffers from the insufficient resolution of the scan.

And the HH monogram. 

Again a candidate for a genuine overprint.

The fourth stamp.

Very smudgy.

I can not see anything which definitely says i am fake. Still, on the other hand, nothing safe can be said for the overprint being genuine. Perhaps even with the stamp in my hands it may not be possible to say if it is genuine. Such things happen quite a lot with those hand made overprints.

The fifth stamp.

The 100r in detail. I do not like the shape of the zeros. The ball of the “r” is missing.

The HH monogram does not look good either. Tail not sharp/pointy, H dimensions wrong, shape generally wrong.

This is a forgery.

The sixth stamp.

A crude forgery.

The seventh stamp.

The overprint turned upright.

And for comparison.

The shape resembles the genuine one somewhat, but not good enough. A forgery.

The eight stamp.

A forgery.

The ninth stamp.

Here the overprint upright and in detail.

A very ugly forgery.

The tenth stamp.

Without further ado the details. The monogram.

And the 100r.

Finally a clear candidate. Now we are talking. Shape and ink are very good. Especially the ink looks typically. The monogram features a very clear impression. Over the years I found that (with a few exceptions) most of the overprints were quite clean and well shaped. They worked very deliberately and took pride in producing good results.

This is the only stamp which would very likely get an positive opinion from me.

Summa sumarum. A very rare overprint indeed. I got information about that the Ashford collection contained two genuine stamps.

If you got this stamp in you collection, please let me know.

PS: I got scans form a collector with 4 more stamps. If I get them in a higher resolution I can say more about it.

The highest value of the Ruble HH surcharge type is the 100 ruble overprint. Here a stamp with a genuine overprint – in this case a good or even a little overinked example: 

Lets have a look at this overprint in more detail, starting with the upper part, the so-called monogram.  

The size of the monogram is smaller in comparison to the 1r, 10r, 25r and 50r overprints. The first angle of the H (part of the monogram) almost touches – or like shown in this example touches the head of the S (part of the monogram) – see the upper arrow. The frame lines of the S are thin (again here overinked, but you can see that it is hollow), but tend to smear together at the end at the base of the H – see lower arrow.

The lower part of the overprint shows even more characteristic signs.The most striking distinguishing mark of the genuine overprint is that the single characters are not on a single line but especially the second “0” is placed higher. You can instantly weed out anything as fake, were you cant see this uneven placement. If you take a closer look, you see that also the first “0” and the “r” are a bit higher than the “1”. Please also note the tilting of both “0” to the left. The second most important feature of the genuine overprint is the size of the “0”. The second “0” is smaller than the first one. This can be seen very good when you compare the inner horizontal width. The shape of the “1” is similar to the shape on 1r and 10r overprints. Although there is quite some variety to be found.  The “r” is thick and quite wide and that is also like with the “r” on 1r and 25r overprints. The spacing is also uneven. Between the “1” and the first “0” is more space than between all other figures.

Quick summary:

• Second “0” clearly above base line
• Inside of second “0” is smaller (horizontal width) then the first “0”
• Both “o” tilt to the left
• Large space between the “1” and the first “0”
• “r” is wide and never closed