Sperati Forgeries Auction With Excellent Images - Paradise Valley Stamp Company

The auction is up on Stamp Auction Network now and is chock full of excellent images of many Sperati forgeries. It is quite something to behold and would make a fantastic reference to use going forward.

I wonder if there is a way to ensure preservation of the images and information contained in this sale for the future?

I realize that it will go into the SAN archives but will quickly be "lost" in the archives and images may go away at some point. That would be a shame.

https://stampauctionnetwork.com/AB/ABSP01.cfm

Richard Frajola has documented many (possibly all) of these.

See at https://www.sperati.org/

Mike

I have viewed Frajola exhibit many times and this is very important material. Not to be critical because the exhibit is amazing... but I find much of this unhelpful to me.

I often conclude that many collections are passed down generation to generation or sold at auction with albums filled with these forgeries. I have yet to encounter exhibit or book easily accessible that compares side by side the differences between these Sperati forgeries and true genuine stamps. Thus the exhibits are rather unhelpful.
Personally, a good exhibit or work that shows off these forgeries really needs to explain how to tell the difference between real and forgery with side by side comparison explaining the differences. Otherwise this remains a black hole to me.

I was wondering if others share my frustration with these images/exhibits?

That sounds rather like the book reviewer's common habit of complaining that an author hadn't written the book that the reviewer would have liked him to write. In this case, when I clicked on a couple of countries - France and GB - in Richard's exhibit, I found thumbnail pictures with descriptions of the differences between Sperati's work and the originals.

It was suggested once that I start collecting Speratis. I bought a USA 9X1 at one of the major auction houses and sent it off to the PF for a cert. It came back as a Sperati. When I called the auction house to inform them, their response was, "You might as well keep it because it has significant value in itself." They actually gave me a hard time returning it - they wanted to chintz me on the cert fee, the buyer's fee, etc, even though all these things are very clearly spelled out in their Terms. Whatever happened to making a person whole after your own screw up??? Anyway, they finally relented, but that left a bad taste in my mouth.

Nothing wrong with Speratis, but when I bid on a (fill in the blank here), I want a (fill in the blank here).

Geoffha

Please provide me a link that explains France or Swiss or Spain. I reviewed all the Frajola stuff and I just don't see where it explains the differences. There are multiple sub-types (lettered) of Sperati forgeries (especially France) and some text about his production techniques, but I never find any side by side comparisons to genuine stamps explaining how to tell the differences. I think some website work has been done by perf12 from this community and perhaps others posting diagrams on internet for some specific stamps. I find this quite useful. But these Sperati forgeries to me look genuine. II guess that's why he was considered the best!

Wait Geoff

Just went back to Frajola

I was looking at his exhibit and never saw the list of countries for Sperati forgeries
I clicked France and found the thumbnails

You are correct about thumbnails so I apologize

Now I will have to look in my collection

Thanks for pointing out thumbnails.

Glad you found them!

There is one very good reason for not including examples of originals side by side. Sperati reproductions, because they are photographic reproductions of a single, genuine stamp (position), the only items that they match exactly are stamps of the same position. That makes it essentially impossible to match genuine with a forgery. My scans are 1200 dpi mostly, most inline images are 300 dpi or less which also makes it difficult.

The way to learn Sperati characteristics is to compare, and learn to differentiate between his photo lithographic reproductions from the technique used to print the genuine. More attention needs to be placed on general characteristics (like less white space between adjacent shading lines in a Sperati - all the Queen Victoria stamps as an example, look at neck shading lines).

Many(not all) of the Sperati stamps are flat in appearance,They don't have that crisp bite to them,they are foggy.The colors are off also.Inking détails are absent _IMO. A couple of examples from the auction pics above I put next to genuine stamps.

perf12 - I think your generalization only works if you have known genuine in hand. Spain is especially tricky when it comes to Sperati forgeries.

The three stamps below all came to Carl Walske direct from Sperati's notebook and those are his notes. I have not decided yet if I should add the two at right as a new type or not.

These are the only "problem children" left from my Sperati work and all I have left at present except for a page of rare Iceland forgeries that are the earliest known reproductions made by Sperati.

There is a form of the 'T' with a slightly shaved upper left side,also a thicker right serif that drops slightly below the left serif.This is from an expertised stamp Graus.ESPAÑA. Ed. 16. 1852. Isabel II. 6 REALES AZUL VERDOSO.

Thank you folks, a very illuminating topic.

Time to recheck that France tete-beche!

That's a great little sale, wonderful images.

I think it is a shame that impressive collection is going to be broken up and pieces will disappear . The work done by Carl Walske and all the additional work done by R. Frajola is now going to be scathered into various collections .

There are groups that I like but wouldn't dare bid on unless I could get all of the group like the German States ,bidding each stamp would be no guarentee to winning that group intact . With that in mind I could see some hot areas reaching high levels but there may be a lot of stuff with no bids with those high prices as openers .

floortrader - you could contact Paradise and ask if they would combine lots. After a block has been sold as individuals, they may open the block to see if anyone wants to pay an increment higher for the whole thing. I recall one company doing that recently for an entire block (of collections that came from a single source???? Not sure who was selling, or the details of the material, but it happened recently). Auctioneers are open to ideas like this, especially if (1) it makes sense material-wise, and (2) they can make more money. I've seen requests like this honored in the past quite a bit.

Anyway, it can't hurt to ask.