Sarawak 1888 50 Cent Green, Inscription Postage - Postage

Hello

I cant find this stamp in neither Michel or S&G. It looks like the 50 cent stamp issued in 1888, but the problem is that it has the inscription Postage - Postage instead of Postage & Revenue. The later issue from 1899 does match the inscription but has wrong colors. Is this stamp issued or is it a forgery?

You are right, in Scott Catalogue, the Postage-Postage stamp issued in 1899 has mentioned 2 colors: olive green and rose however it does not contain its picture. I was able to find an image of this stamp and the value is printed in rose.


Your stamp may be a forgery but may also be an error or a different issue that is not in the Catalogue.

Look at Scott 20 ,I believe that is the stamp.

Thank you for your answers!

I looked up scott no 20, it has the inscription: "postage & revenue" and my stamp has "postage - postage". Otherwise my stamp look like scott no 20. Should I try to contact someone who is a specialist in this area?

As the postmark appears to be dated '90', and that was nine years before the POSTAGE-POSTAGE types were released, I'd be inclined to think the stamp is a forgery.

I would not embrace the assumption of the stamp being a forgery too easily due to 2 reasons:
1. If this is a forgery of 1888 SC#20, how can be explained the forger missed completely one word (& Revenue) replacing it with another (Postage) and what coincidence that 11 years later a stamp with Postage - Postage is issued.
2. If this is a forgery of 1899 SC#46, how comes the forger missed completely the obvious rose color of the value.
In my opinion the cancel might be the key. If the cancel can be proved as genuine then should be researched if in 1888 hasn't been issued Postage-Postage stamps too. If the cancel is fake then there is a chance someone tried to fake both the stamp and the cancel but somehow he mixed the 2 stamps. SC#20 is more valuable used than mint but in such cases usually forgers get the mint stamp and apply a fake cancel on it as it is easier to fake a cancel then a stamp.

Alis, neither Gibbons nor the Robson Lowe Encyclopaedia of British Empire Postage Stamps mention an 1888 printing of the POSTAGE-POSTAGE stamps.

The late 19th century was the heyday of forging, but the forgers didn't always get things right.

The cancel may be poorly struck 99 which gives the impression of 90.

The stamp & postmark look OK and I think the a solution is that the area of the base has been manipulated to Green instead of Rose.

There is another possibility that it is a Proof that has been used,

Pagoda

It looks to be perf 14, and the image looks pretty good, so I suspect it is genuine and not a forgery.

I really don't like any answer that relies on two totally separate things going on, but I think this stamp has two things going on.

I suspect an inverted date slug in the cancel, to explain away the POSTAGE | POSTAGE issue, and some sort of after-the-fact change in the value-tablet ink. I don't know what would make rosine change into this color, but I think that is what happened here.

My 2d.

Not sure if it brings something new or not, however, I superimposed your stamp over the 2 stamps SC#20 and 46. Scans being at different dpi, I set the same width between them. With SC#20 I got an exact match of stamps borders while with #46, your stamp is slightly taller (the difference is approx. equal with the difference between the outer border and the next inner border).
With stamp #20, all design details are exactly the same except for second Postage of course.
I also checked the cancel and the year looks like being 90 not possible 99.
If these stamps were printed identical, your stamp should be either a forgery of SC#20 or an error of that stamp or an undocumented different issue of that stamp. However I briefly searched for these 1888 stamps on the internet but I couldn't find any being Postage - Postage.

Here are some links to Sarawak's postal history. I did a quick perusal of the material and couldn't find anything relating to your stamp. Maybe I missed something. Happy reading!

http://www.pustaka-sarawak.com/Pust...ery/bib.html

These last two links are slow to load and can be accessed from the bibliography on the link above.

http://www.pustaka-sarawak.com/Pust...sarawak.html

http://www.librarynet.com.my/pls/an...=&v_tagord=0

Dan

To be a little more clear on my theory, I believe it was canceled in 1906, with the "06" slug(s) being inverted, making it look like a "90".

Not saying it is the case, but it might be a partial explanation.