Does Anybody Else Collect Indonesian Revolutionary Stamps?

Stampdoc.

Second Floortrader's comment. Thanks for sharing some very nice material from an interesting collecting area that only rarely is presented.

Again, despite collecting for more than 50 yrs, remain fascinated by the variety of philatelic material, interests, and knowledge base.

There seems to be three main areas of Indonesia Philately here . The first is Dutch East Indies ,Japanese Occupation .Second then Japanese Occupation with Republic overprints .The third area is provisional issues for the Republic .

I think I am going to also make a sub-group of D.E.I. Jap.Occup. for the Japanese Naval overprints .Going to make up prelimary pages to see how this lay out will work .

The hardest part is seperating the various differences of overprints to each state or region ,that I am going to leave for the experts. I don't have enough material to make that last divison . The above 4 sections will be way beyond what any other collectors have done and that will give me a decent showing of material .

if you have an interest in collecting in this area, having the "Dai Nippon catalogue of the postage stamps of Indonesia 17 August 1945 - 27 December 1949" is essential. It will tell you which district of Indonesia the various overprints come from. More importantly, it will stop you from buying that Scott 2L8 for $100 when actually it's only worth $5 because of the Japanese 92z overprint. Most internet dealers, and at least one auction house that I have seen, go only by Scott and don't have Dai Nippon, and are thus ripping off unsuspecting buyers ( but not on purpose presumably - ignorance is rampant in this area).

Stampdoc , I do have a interest but my collecting style is to do the whole world ,so you will notice in a week or two I will be doing something different . I just picked up some nice forgeries of Tibet ,so I may go there next week and add those into my collection .

Just to get back to Japanese Occupation of the Ned-Indies ,I am 2/3 the way thru it ,I got the Japanese Occup. and the Naval issues ,this week end I got the Provisional to do both the overprints on the Jap. Occu. overprints and the overprints on the Ned. Ind . issues plus the independant issues . I will be working blind because I haven't seen this stuff layed out by someone else .

Hope to show you what I got ,but remember this is just my first layout and mounting . Maybe Saturday or Sunday it will be post here .

Here is the first 5 pages of my collection of 24 pages on the Dutch East Indies Occupation .

Interesting start to a new collecting focus. Thx for posting.

floortrader and Stampdoc,
Thank you for sharing your pages in this thread.
Don

Here are the next 5 pages ......remember I am going blind on some of these overprints because the details are not clear or large enough to show the differences from the various locations in the book I am using .

CONT. ......Next group .....

Floortrader - if you are just getting into this area you are putting together a very nice collection quickly. I especially like the set of machine T overprints on the Konijnenburg series on page 7.

Some comments:
On page 1 I see some forgeries unfortunately. See how the letter P within the star varies? Most of yours look good, but the larger ones with the big opening don't. They appear to be a type A forgery.






The above images are from "Forgeries of Overprints on the Postage Stamps of the Netherlands Indies issued during the Japanese Occupation 1942-1945" issued by Dai Nippon. Besides this and my basic "Catalogue of the Postage Stamps of the Republic of Indonesia 17 August 1945 - 27 December 1949" by Dai Nippon, I also use:

"Catalogue of the Postage Stamps of the Netherlands East Indies under Japanese Occupation 1942-1945" by Dai Nippon

"The Cancellations Used During the Japanese Occupation of the Dutch East Indies and Repoeblik Indonesia, 1942-1949" by Dai Nippon

"Catalogue/Handbook of Revenues Netherlands Indies Japanese Occupation 1942-1945 and Republic of Indonesia Administration 1945-1949" by Dai Nippon

Katalog Prangko Indonesia 2018 (the equivalent of Scotts for Indonesia) - mainly to get an updated view of valuations since Dai Nippon's catalogue hasn't been updated since 2005. However, Prangko only includes about 5% of the possible overprints, so you have to have the Dai Nippon catalogue.

on page 3 of your stamps in the upper left the 20c Kreisler is and Indonesian revolutionary stamp rather than pure Japanese occupation - I'm pretty sure I see a P.T.T. over Indonesia overprint, which makes it a 61-70v-27b - valued at $18 in 2005

on page 4 some nice crosses. But don't buy any expensive crosses without a cert. The cross overprint had by far the greatest variety in terms of size and shape of any of the Japanese overprints. The difference between fake and genuine can be 1/2 mm of the width of the bar - which can easily be affected by how hard the clerk pushed down on the rubber stamp. Even certifiers have trouble sometimes unless there is a matching cancellation that fits.

on page 5, note the cancellations on the 10c Kreislers. the one on the right is from Medan, which is a city where large numbers of CTOs were issued with a nice corner cancellation. I suspect you will find gum on the back of that, and probably on the one to the left as well - CTOs were common elsewhere as well. Many Republican issues are known only in the CTO state. If I have one, I've decided I'll put it in my album, but with a notation that it's a CTO.

On page 6, that's a nice assortment of T overprints. The machine cancels are consistent and easy to spot, but the hand stamped ones can very quite a bit. In the lower left where it says "unknown postal service cancel" if that refers to the fact that the T overprint doesn't match the others, I think it's because it's the only type 917 (where the lines on the T are closest together) on the page, and over inked at that. See image below




On page 7 - on the bottom right the 5 guilder stamp is an Indonesian revolutionary stamp rather than pure Japanese occupation. There is a violet "Rep In-" over "donesia" overprint type 54 on the machine T overprint, which makes this a 54v-92z-41b, catalogue value $42 in 2005.

Other pages: A lot of nice looking anchors. Fortunately for me. the Indonesian revolution never really took hold in the islands of "The Great East", and there are no revolutionary stamps with anchors. (which allows me to skip the intimidating 18 pages of forgeries in the forgery catalogue )

Looking forward to any more images you have.
Bob

more pages ------

Last group ......Thanks STAMPDOC ,if you didn't open up this section I would of left all these stamps still on blank stockbook pages.I will make corrects after you finish looking and correcting what ever I missed or add notes as you point them out .....thanks .

I put a note on some of the pages that the Japanese during the last days of the war , were letting the Nationals overprint their own {Japanese } overprints and defaceing Ned-Indies stamps with the "Republic Indonesian" overprint ,there was only one source for that statement . I am hoping in the future to get others making the call if that is correct .

The upcoming Van Dieten auction has 268 lots (lots 1470-1738) of Japenese occupation and Indonesian Revolutionary material. The images are not showing right now and I have emailed Tom to get it fixed.

https://stampauctionnetwork.com/VD/VD646.cfm

Rodgcam - you just had to go and mention the Van Dieten auction! - I don't need any more competition

Floortrader - now I'm getting envious - you posted in your last 10 pages some very nice stuff, including a number of items I don't have, which I wish I did.

My comments:
I was not aware of the Japanese approving of the Republicans overprinting their stamps before they surrendered. My references imply that the Japanese surrendered in mid-August and just let the Republicans take over the post office and other civil functions. The Republicans then started overprinting the Dutch and Japanese stamps in stock as many other revolutionary governments have done until they can get up and running. Admittedly, some of their early efforts were crude.
If you have a link to the source that says the Japanese allowed overprinting before they surrendered, I would like you to send it to me.

Page 1 - I think the top stamp, rather than defaced, is a poor attempt at a fake Japanese cross overprint. The one and 2 line overprints were crude early Republican stamps, but the ease of forgery is so great in these, that most purists will only put in their collection such stamps cancelled with a clear revolutionary date between Aug 45 and Dec 49.
On the bottom left you have something very interesting. That appears to be a Scott 2L5 with an error of missing Repoeblik Indonesia. It is a known error - listed in Dai Nippon with a catalogue number of 0105od - value $48 (all values I mention are from 2005 - for anything cataloguing over about $10 you can probably increase it by 50% - or sometimes more (or sometimes less)). I wish I had one of those.

Page 2 - a nice selection of "Rep Indonesia" overprints, both type 211 and 213. These were from Sumatra. The boxed Repoeblik Indonesia stamps below those are type 52 - from Java

Page 3 - Very nice "Rep In-" over "donesia" in a frame type 54 on Konijnenburgs. These are harder to find than such overprints without other overprints as well. That grouping catalogues at about $90.

Page 5 - at the top, the same type 54 frame overprints on Konijnenburgs, but with T overprints as well - that grouping catalogues at about $39 - easier to find than the plain 54s
Right below those is a very nice grouping of "Rep Indonesia" type 211 with T overprints, from 10c to 80c - they cat about $50. I don't have a number of those. the 1 guilder and 2g don't quite fit though - the 2g has a type 54 overprint, and I can't quite tell what's going on on the 1g - it may be a 54 as well

Page 6 - The 2nd 50c stamp is not a REP. IND., but rather a REP: IND:
REP. IND. is a different and very expensive animal.
You have some more very nice ones at the bottom - those are not defaced - they are actual overprints. the crude circles are Sumatra type 13 - here they are combined with a 213 and a 215 it looks like. The crude block on the right looks like a type 14 Sumatra overprint (assuming it's not bigger than 13 x 16mm)- supposedly not rare by catalogue value - but just try and find one! I've been trying for 3-4 years now.
The thing that originally got me interested in this field was the fact that you could have 2,3, and even 4 overprints, and it could still be a MNH stamp.

Page 7 - Upper left - 50sen on 17 1/2c Repoeblik Indonesia. This one drives me nuts. Every small time internet dealer (and auction houses too - I'm talking to you Universal Philatelic!) thinks they have Scott 2L8 cataloging about $100. It says immediately below that the Japanese overprints alter the value. As in the very common T overprint as seen here, which lowers the value to $5.

Page 10 - I agree that it's not clear what's going on in that upper left stamp - I would want a closer look at it. The upper right is a 213v-87v-16b Republican stamp. (a blurry "Rep Indonesia" diagonally)
The 2 lower stamps appear to have Japanese overprints as well - 82z on the left, 87v on the right.

On the whole you've got a great start to a fascinating area here. It is complicated and requires a lot of resources - after 3-4 years of working hard at it, I would say I have intermediate knowledge at best