Early Switzerland Cancellation Question

My Scott tells me that "Forged or Backdated cancellations are found frequently on these issues." This is a 15c Lemon from the 1867 to 1881 time period. To me, the cancel looks a little too well centered to be truly postally used. (I really need to soak off the backing paper sometime.)

In my limited experience I have found the older Swiss stamps to have more clear and carefully centered cancels than other countries. I keep many low value swiss stamps just for their cancels. Someone else may comment on the likelihood of forgeries, but well centered cancels in my opinion are the rule more than the exception on Swiss stamps.

I agree Partime, that cancel looks a bit too good to be true.

Partime, I tend to agree with Scouter here. Especially on older stamps the Swiss tend to cancel 'socked on the nose' more than anyone else.
Also, if you follow auctions with Swiss material these cancels tend to sell for quite a bit more, depending on the cancellation.

Peter

I have quite a few other Switzerland stamps from the early time periods, and I do have to say that quite a few are "socked on the nose". My interest in this particular stamp was that my Scott gives an Unused value of $3.50 and a Used value of $500.00 assuming White Wove paper. If it is Granite Paper (which I don't see on this example), the price difference is $12.50 / $575.00. I know it's not the perfect example, but, except for the top right perfs and some toning on the left, I thought it was fairly good. Thanks for the comments so far.

I suppose the cancel on this stamp is genuine, but unfortunately it is not the granite paper stamp, which is indeed rare in used condition.

The granite paper stamp has been issued in September 1881, while the pictured copy has a cancellations from 1876. This is a normal cancellation for this stamp (catalog value 60 Francs), the stamp has a second part of the cancellation which is rather a good sign for the authenticity but a bad sign for the market (several cancellations are not popular).

It appears the perforation is missing at the upper left corner.

Philimpex. Thanks for your comments. I cleaned up the stamp a bit, and you are correct that there are damaged perfs at upper left, and some short perfs on right top.

I also found an error with my Scott's value. I didn't notice it, but they got the values of Used and On Cover reversed, so your estimate of 60 Francs is a lot closer (if it wasn't damaged, of course).

Wondering about the date. It lists 24 X 76 XI. The 76 implies 1876, and I would think that the 24 and first X would imply the 24th day of the tenth month (October). What does the final XI indicate?

Partime Yes your date reading is correct, the XI after the year is the hour, it means 11 P.M. (very late in the night) roman figures were for hours after noon. SUCCURSALE means auxiliary office, or say not the main post office of BIENNE

At that time they used the french town name in the present it's BIEL / BIENNE (90% German spoken and 10% French spoken).

The 15 Centimes has very often clear cancellations, the stamp has been used frequently on COD documents (soft cardboard) to collect e.g. newspaper saubscriptions or so, while other higher denominations have often illegible cancels as they were fixed on overweight letters or small parcels etc..

philimpex, this is exactly the kind of information that I find interesting, and invaluable.

Yes, thank you so much for your valuable input.