Bar Cancels On Early Spanish Stamps

No matter what forum I visit, someone always has a question about the bar canceled remainders on early Spanish stamps. Since they are listed even in the Scott catalog, most people identify them readily. However, there are "bar" type cancels that are constantly being misidentified as bar cancelled remainders.

All the examples in the scan below, I've seen described as such, especially in online auctions like ebay. Only 1 however is actually a bar cancelled remainder.

A - This is the bar cancelled remainder. You can find them on most of the issues from 1854-1882. As unsightly as they are, they do represent a genuine copy of the stamp. If you want to fill that empty space in your album, they are perfectly acceptable in my opinion. Also, if you have these in your collection and want to upgrade to a postally used copy at some point in time, these bar cancels can be used as reference copies to compare to, because they are genuine stamps.

B & C - These are forgeries. These particular forgeries can be distinguished by the poorly formed letters, including the first "C" in "CORREOS", which only has a serif at the top of the letter and not the bottom. Also, most of the copies I've seen have some sort of outer frame line, or registration line in the stamps border. Originals did not have such extra lines. I have seen all the values in the set, as well as the officials of 1854, forged like this. Some have 2 bars printed on them, some have 1 and the officials I've seen have none. But nonetheless they have been mistaken as bar cancelled remainders.

D - This is a genuine stamp with a printed bar, but it's not a bar cancelled remainder. Copies like this, with a single printed bar, are generally referred to as "muestras" (specimens). They can be found on various values in the 1854 and 1855 sets

All of these are commonly found in small collections of classic Spanish stamps that are routinely found on places like ebay.

These are also found on stamps of Spanish colonies during the same era!

Which ones? I don't collect the colonies much. Can you post example?

Cuba is one I'm not currently able to scan & post!

Are these referred to in the catalog as "Varnish Bars" ?

stalzer - No, the first and third are bar cancelled remainders (as in example A above). They were sold to stamp dealers at a substantial discount of face value. I like the first one. I have not seen an example where the roller bars go in 2 different directions.

The middle one looks like a "muestra" (specimen). It looks like a printed bar, rather than a pen cancel. I don't think Spain ever used varnish bars on their early stamps.

Also, in my 1998 version of the Edifil catalog, your middle stamp does NOT have a listing as a muestra, only the 4 cuartos in that set. However that does not mean it is not one. I have a few that I also believe are muestra's but are not listed as well. From what I have seen they are not that popular with Spanish collectors, which might be why they are commonly found in small Spanish collections or remainder lots, along with the 3-bar roller cancels.

I was originally going to post a scan of one of these when I started this topic, but I couldn't find the examples I had. Well, I just ran across this on an auction site (not ebay).

This is actually a bar cancelled remainder that someone has attempted to disguise with an oval grill cancel, and pass it off as a genuine used item. The bars on the oval grill and the bars on the bar cancel are spaced about the same so it makes this type of fake very tempting and easy. I have seen all the high values in this set, at one time or another, with such fake cancels.

Notice, the 3 bars in the middle of the grill cancel are much thicker than the other bars. Those are the bars from the remainder cancel. Also, you can still see remnants of the bar cancel on the extreme left of the stamp OUTSIDE of the oval grill.



This is currently in a "mail sale" from a big name stamp company who sells quite a lot of early Spanish items, and should know better.

I have a Spain S76a with a line cancel. Is this a specimen, would this cancel change the cat value? Thoughts? Pls discuss.....

Opinion:
to me, that looks like a wax crayon line, not a bar.
The significance is beyond my knowledge.

Should this bé real, it's an inverted centre. The frame is upsidedown. But, it looks fishy to me. Furthermore, the line across is neither a cancel, nor a printed obsolescence line. Perhaps, someone wrote it to show a forgerie or alike?

The stamp is a forgery.Design details and color are not conform.

Yes, it's a forgery of a known variety but with the wrong colours: orang, instead of pink. Curiously enough, this is the only post from NorthShoreStamps and she seems to heve desapeared...