Fake Cancels On Officials

Either favor cancels or maunscript cancels from Littletowns, USA, pen cancels have always interested me.I always checked the listing of any pen canceled Official, and bought most of them off eBay. When I saw this stamp, my thought was that "thats one I don't have" and so purchaced it, Can you imagine my surprize when I discovered that it wouldn't go into the Pen Cancel collection but belonged in a prize spot, another of my little collections, fake cancels. Here the faker had destroyed a rare Special Printing ( 177 of these sold ) to create a used 10C Post Office stamp.On another occasion, I thought I was getting a fake cancel of O25 s, but again I was delighted to discover that it was O25 s b, the Small Dotted I Error. Since there were 9,729 ( 98 sheets ) of the 1C Justice on ribbed paper sold there were possibily 196 of these sold to the public, this one a faker destroyed!

I've never read any discussions of 'fake' cancels. What would be the purpose? Do these stamps you've posted have gum? were these issues ever pre-canceled?

would it be unethical to "remove" a fake cancel? How about an owners mark on the back? or erase a penciled in Scott #? Would it not be similar?

The specimen was issued without gum. I have seen several fake cancels on specimen officials, they were not very highly thought of at one time and the normal stamps often catalog quite a bit more even used.

So rev, at one time having these canceled made them more valuable?

No, having the cancels was an attempt to fraudulently pass off the specimens as regular used examples. Most of the examples I have seen had cork cancels, not manuscripts.

Ahhh, alright got it know. I imagine then you would see a cancel trying to obliterate the 'specimen'.