Japan And Identification Of An Early Issue

I am way out of my comfort zone with this Japanese material. I am using Scott to sort through some earlier stamps and have come up with three questions. At least, so far.

The first stamp shown seems to be A6 without syllabic characters. This, because of the colour, puts it as Scott 51 from 1875, which would be great because that seems to be a scarce issue. Is anyone able to confirm this, or, for that matter, give me an alternate designation.




The second question involves what appears to design A7 with the syllabic character ka, 14. However, the colour does not fit either possible descriptions. Number 36 is described as violet brown and number 43 is orange. It could be an oxidized orange but wishful thinking pushes me to violet brown. Any opinions?




Third is just a matter of interest. In this copy of Number 62, there appears to be a printing flaw. There is a void between the "o" and the "s" of POST on the right hand side. Can anyone tell me if this is a constant flaw or is it just a bit of fluff on the printing plate?

The first one shown is a forgery of Scott 51. It is pretty good. The ID characteristic for the genuine is that a branch should connect the connect the top right leaf with the the third; there are forgeries with that characteristic, too.

the 6 sen violet brown syllabic KA is a (common) forgery of Scott 36. It is without 3 of the 4 secret marks in the genuine design: leaves to the left of "6" touch the frameline, leaf on the snail-like curl to the right of the southwest flower, dot below the rightmost wave in the group below 6 SEN. That southwest flower is badly squashed unlike any genuine. The adherence implies this came from the tourist sheets where most forgeries came from. If an oxidized 6s orange (which I doubt here, but good thinking), genuine should have the first two characteristics noted above, plus a distinctive "sen" character that's not here.

The third is a forgery of Scott 62, unfortunately. The roman letters should clearly show serifs. Based on the color I see and vs. the previous scans, the actual color is much paler and brighter. The cancel is a well-known fake, too. From here, it looks like this one is one of the engraved forgeries where the genuine are typographed (letterpress). EDIT: This IS the engraved forgery, identified as type 2 by Wilhelmsen and Tyler and pictured in their monograph The Koban Forgeries of Japan.

So, hope this isn't too discouraging. If there are more Cherry Blossoms, please post clear scans.

Not discouraging at all. Fascinating game, in fact. Japan is not an area that I have any knowledge of and I just took on a page of older issues to try and sort through with the limited information in Scott. I will admit that three for three as forgeries is something of a record though.

One question though. You mentioned "tourist sheets" where most forgeries come from. Was it a common practice to print sheets of fake stamps to sell openly as souvenirs?

Tourist sheets were sheets of mixed Japanese stamps, in little boxed squares, with Japanese flags at the top of the sheet.
Often shown here on SCF
https://goscf.com/t/78861

3 for 3 forgeries in early Japan is not so uncommon these days in America and Europe. My thought is that very nearly all the genuine in dealer stocks went back to Japan during their boom years in the 1960s and a bit later.

There are different kinds of tourist sheets in different designs. Some included some cheap genuine stamps and genuine cut squares from stationery. There aren't a lot of these intact anymore.

Here are two more typical ones from the tourist sheets. These were marked by forger(s) in two characters, either sanko ("reference") or mozo ("imitation"), apparently to prevent outright accusation of selling forgeries. Unfortunately, the characters are tiny and sometimes buried. The catalogs don't give large enough images of genuine stamps to give a good comparison. Plus, there are forgeries without these characters, as we've seen.


These also fail the tests used to separate genuine from forgeries.

The link posted by Rod22 gives me something else interesting to read here. Thank you.

As requested, I am posting scans of the three Cherry Blossom issues that were in this collection. Not many, just 3. Found the cancellation in English Characters to be intriguing.






The stamps come from a world collection purchased a while back and I have worked my way to this point in sorting through. The page shown below is the one I am currently working on. Next page is the issue in use 1913 to 1934. That will be challenging too.

This also reminded me, while we are on the topic of stamp reproductions, of a sheet printed in 1961. It was in another book of odds and ends but I am assuming it was possibly produced for a Stamp Exhibition or to mark the Postal Anniversary. Not sure exactly which stamps are depicted or why they were chosen. The paper used is very definitely a laid paper.

In this case, characters on the reverse mark each stamp. Again, I am presuming that they identify the stamp as a reproduction.

I like that page! In Japan, cancels are collected and premiums small to large can be expected on these issues - not so much on this side of the Pacific.

The second group you show are called kobans, nicknamed for the earlier oval coins and the oval shape of the lower value stamps. All 3 are genuine, of course.

The roman letter cancels were used for foreign mail. If originating from a small town, this would be struck as a transit mark on a cover or card.

The second has a large Bota killer cancel, (I think) from Niigata and reversed from what is usually found. See also:
http://www.sanrizuka.com/koban/Bota-Collection.htm
http://www.sanrizuka.com/koban/koban.htm

The third is a generic telegraph cancel on the 15 sen, a value often used to pay telegraph charges.

If you like, let's see the other Cherry Blossoms (1st, 5th and 6th stamps from left, top row). The left 20 sen looks forged, the other might be genuine.

The 1 sen in the top row is one I've seen but can't identify. The 4 sen in the top row has a postage due cancel. The 2 sen in the third row has a small Bota cancel, "O" for Osaka.

The souvenir sheet is a non-postal item produced by the Japanese post office. There are around ten different showing the earliest issues. While relatively accurate, the originals all vary from stamp to stamp so they can't be used for comparison purposes. To be absolutely positively sure of ID, stamps have to be plated. More here and found elsewhere here on SCF:
https://goscf.com/t/70117
Still, they're nice to have when we can't afford to get all the earlies (like me).

very interesting analysis. I am including separate scans of the remaining three from the top row that you mentioned.

The 1/2 sen gray is Scott 40 and genuine. Perhaps the tipoff is that the cancel looks genuine. This is position 38 from plate II. I won't go into detail of the ID characteristics except they are specific to Syllabic 3 (ha).

The 2 sen supposed to be Scott 12 is a forgery. The fan-like corner ornaments end in solid dots in the genuine and not circles ending in short lines.

The 4 sen is Scott 14 (or 14a?) and is genuine. Type II design with the side panel arabesque frames with tops and bottoms separated by lines. It is (corner) position 33 of plate XII, a scarcer plate. The pinhole at upper left is for positioning stacks of sheets for perforating and is a normal expected thing for this position. That's an Osaka cancel.

Thanks for the nice scans!