Japan's First Dragon Stamps 1871

Japan's first stamps : Dragon 1871



Are these genuine or one of HIROSE's or Kotaro WADA's famous forgeries ?!?

Thanks

I suspect them all to be forgeries;

- they all have exceptionally wide margins, which is very unusual for the imperforated dragon stamps;

- the value inscription (Kanji characters in the centre) appears to be rather odd, especially for the 48 mon (brown) and 100 mon (blue);

- the 48 mon has a circle cancellation, which is very uncommon for this series;

I recommend you to have a look at

http://www.geocities.co.jp/HeartLand-Renge/1164/

where you can find the images of genuine stamps as well as major forgeries.

Regards,

-- Hironobu

Noted with thanks Hironobu

Hironobu, thanks for that link!

Thank you again Hironobu

Very useful the links you provided to us.

So basis these links and other info you sent me , here are my comments :

- 48 mon : missing the secret marks. Most likely is a Wada A forgery
- 100 mon : missing the secret marks. This one is a Hirose B forgery. And to increase the value of its forgery Hirose made the stamp with inverted centre !
- 200 mon : the worst forgery among all ! It could be Wada B or Spiro.
- 400 mon : forgery of Plate I , early printing. Secret marks missing ! I guess is Wada A or Wada C .