Early German

There should be one noticeable dot at the center of each of the circles, more or less. (Allowing for some imprecision in my drawing skills.)

There are a number of things that give this one away.

1) The "bleeding" of the ink around the 1/2 values. The ink looks totally wrong ... almost like it's a watercoler.
2) The incomplete lettering. The "P", "S", "R" and "K" in 'POSTMARKE' are incomplete. The letters should be crisp and complete. The rest of the words suffer from the same malady.
3) The design directly under the word "LUBECK" is just a couple of dots and lines. It should be a detailed design of vines.
4) The scrolls to the inside of the corners are too thick ... probably due to the ink 'bleeding'
5) The overall appearance is very "Muddy".

19th century German states were heavily forged and most are pretty good. This stamp is bad enough that it might not even make it into the German Philatelic Society's reference guide to forgeries. But I'll double check next weekend when my club's philatelic library is open.

Cheers!

Brian

I want to elaborate a little bit on what I term "Muddy" appearance.

First, a little history lesson.

Most of us are familiar with the name Gutenberg. His work on the printing press in the 15th century revolutionized the art of printing. The point of origin? Mainz, Germany (basically modern day Frankfurt).

It was from this starting point that printing moved throughout Europe. And it goes without saying that the Germans got really good at printing and engraving.

Move forward to the 19th century. Some 400+ years after Gutenberg perfected the printing press, Germany had some of the most skilled printers and engravers in the world. The details in their postage stamps are unmatched in my opinion. It's exceedingly rare to find variances in their engravings and even more rare to find faults in stamps due to cracked plates.

This skill by the Germans in printing and engraving, naturally, led to some very good forgeries. Until you have sat down and counted shading lines on Baden under high magnification, or measured the thickness of letters and border lines on Bergedorf, you haven't experienced the difficulty in detecting forgeries.

When you see an early German stamp that has poor details as in this case, it's an automatic red flag. German stamps don't naturally have "Muddy" appearances ... they are, as a rule, crisp and clear.

Brian

I'm most grateful for this "lesson." The level of detail you just provided is something I'm certain most of us asking about "forged" stamps would really LIKE to learn more about. Same holds true for My Heligoland issues in this post, or the Armenian stamps Jeff and I both seem to have.

I'm not saying it wouldn't be fun to have the "real" thing, but many of us posting here probably don't KNOW how to recognize the real thing... which is why it is important to be somewhat detailed in your responses.

I don't belong to a club so you folks here at SCF are my guides.

Thanks again Brian. It's Appreciated.

thanks brian good reading!

Excellent.

Great thread all.

Thanks for the positive feedback. I do want to add that I am in no way, shape, or form an expert on the subject. I am an avid collector of early German philately and can only share what I have learned from others or from reading. I spend at least 2 hours, twice a month reading through the German Philatelic Society material at the Northwest Philatelic Library here in Portland. Unfortunately, they cannot be checked out so I can only do my research at the library when it's open (4 times a month). I have yet to find hard copies for sale ...

Would be nice to have narrowed the field somewhat to know what I'm interested in... beyond knowing what I have. Maybe then, I'll begin to get a feel for something special and begin to acquire some depth of knowledge. Til then, I'll hope for more folk such as you. :)

I'm with everyone else regarding your posts, Brian. Good stuff.

I have a bit of the GPS literature that I picked up here and there over time, and what I have seen is packed with information. I sure would like to have access to a lot of it, even if it was only two hours at a crack.

Also, for the archives, as a followup specifically regarding the Lubeck stamp, each value was made from its own die, so my comments are specific to the value shown, only.