Tunisia Postage Due T Punctures/Perfins

Early Tunisia postage dues were created by adding a large perforated T to regular postage stamps.

According to Scott Classic, for the lower values, the sheets of stamps were folded in half and then run through the perforator, creating relatively equal chances of obtaining a regular or an inverted T.

For the higher values, the stamps were created as needed, so that there is an imbalance between normal and inverted. They are priced separately.

I've had a few of these but never paid much attention to them. I just picked up a card of eleven of them, and seeing them all together makes me wonder a bit about them.

Here is the row with the higher values:



(I haven't yet removed the hinges...I'm guessing the perfs might have weakened the stamps a bit, so I'm not in a rush to remove them.)

There appear to be two different sizes of holes. Here are closeups of the 1f and the 5f:





Any ideas about variations in perfs?

Second, the 5f is the high value, and I'm wondering about the large X. An early example of the marker monkey? Or a remainder cancel?

Thanks for looking.

Very interesting, those are new to me. Thanks for sharing .

I wonder if the X is some sort of precancel.

The Ceres catalog differentiates the 2 different "hole" sizes using the terms "lean figure" and "bold figure". It also catalogs the inverted T's.

These T perforations were heavily reproduced by Maury and he sold them as fakes. Of course, after he sold them, then the buyers sold them as... Since the original perforating equipment was used, it is a little tricky to ID original T perforations. Especially, genuine 5fr T perforations are quite uncommon. Some of your stamp T perforation varieties are not listed in Ceres, so you should treat them with caution. However, my Ceres is old (2001), so some new varieties may now be listed/confirmed.

Thanks for that, k. The CV on the 5f is on the higher side, so of course I suspect foul play. The "X" appears to postdate the perforations, but that means little.

My 2001 Ceres does not list a "lean figure" T perforation for the 1fr stamp at all (neither normal nor inverted). Again, maybe newer catalog has updated listing -- or maybe Maury wasn't privy to that information and used the perforators to reproduce the T's on all the stamps in that series? I don't know those details on Maury.

By the way, I forgot to mention -- very nice stamps to have regardless of genuine or fake. Stamps that can generate a good conversation are always great to have. Somewhere online, I'm sure there is more info on the Maury reproductions.

A brief bio on Maury, which mentions the fake Tunisian perforations.

http://doig.net/Maury.html

Thanks for the bio. Interesting stuff.