South Africa 1900.

Would help if anyone could tell me what is the ERI and VRI o/p is about and is there anything noteworthy amongst these. Thanks.

VRI is Victoria Regina Imperatrix and ERI is Edward Rex Imperator.

Victoria, Queen and Empress/Edward, King and Emperor, respectively. British occupation stamps from the Boer War era.

Forgeries abound. Gibbons says that genuine overprints cannot have three perfect letters, and the periods/stops cannot be uniformly level with the bottom of the letters.

Hi Cjd,

I read the SG guideline on genuine stamps a little differently: the genuine stamps cannot have both (1) all letters perfect and (2) the stops all aligned with the bottom of the letters.

ok guys.Tell me from your perspective view are these genuine or forgeries.

nigel, I'm not certain how to interpret SG on this point, except to say that the most common forgeries would apparently have both perfect letters and lined-up periods/stops. I have quite an accumulation of these, but haven't given them any serious study.

Here is the excerpt for anyone who wants to see what nigel and I are discussing:



And Scott Classic says:

"The overprint on the forgeries is clear and clean, with small periods and letters showing completely. In the genuine, letters are worn and lack many or all serifs; the periods are large and oval."

Selva, I wouldn't feel comfortable taking a guess without a big scan. Someone who has more familiarity with these than I might be able to answer based on your scans.