KeVII Board Of Education? If So, Rare But Worthless

Greetings! This is my first post here, although I've been using these forums as a resource for almost a year, to help with the collection I inherited from my mother and grandmother. (This is a really fun hobby!) :)

I recently came across what appears to be a one shilling King Edward VII with a Board of Education overprint. Watermark is correct, perfs are correct. The carmine is correct. But the green!! OMG!! I gather this is what happens when some stamps are soaked. (Full disclosure: I did NOT do this)




I'm assuming this is what it appears to be. I'm also assuming that, with such a horrific color issue, it is worth absolutely nothing.

Sad, yes?

If genuine, this would still be worth a very substantial amount even with the washed out green.

Almost certainly a fake overprint.

defintely a fake overprint,

Pagoda

Oh dear. This was mentally much simpler for me if I simply assumed all value gone due to the color. I'm extremely new to all this.

So how does one determine whether or not an overprint is fake?

Here is the overprint from Gibbons:




In addition to the overprint looking sketchy, if you look at the overprint under strong magnification you might be able to see that the overprint is over the cancel.

When you see a relatively common stamp with a parcel cancel that can be converted into a rare-ish stamp with the addition of a fake overprint, you have to get very suspicious of the overprint.

My goodness, the Gibbons lettering looks VERY different from the Scott lettering in my catalogue. How very odd!

Looking at my stamp under strong magnification is a helpful suggestion, although it's really hard to tell with so much fading. I have a number of GB overprinted stamps and am now going through them all to see if I can tell whether the cancel is atop the overprint. Sometimes I can see that it is, sometimes not. Which I guess either means they're almost all fakes (even those that are worth very little), or I just flat-out can't tell.

Here is a picture of the originally posted stamp beside another BoE stamp I have (perhaps also forged?). I see the letter shapes as very very similar to one another, as well as similar to the Scott catalogue image (I don't have an uploadable file for that unfortunately).



Myself, I think the overprint on the 1p looks odder than on the one shilling. It's kind of fuzzy, with lots of little ink 'bleeding'. I'd really only been looking at the lettering details, but with the enormous difference between Gibbons and Scott, I'm now pretty lost.

:(

Just want to add that I'm really grateful for all the input! Thanks very much!!

Polimon,

the KEVII 1d. is also has a forged overprint, they are both handstamps,

compare with this,






Pagoda

pagoda --

Now I'm wondering if this entire bunch of overprints is forged! These are the only BoE, but I have other overprinted stamps -- O.W., I. W., etc.

This whole concept is brand new to me. Can you explain how you can tell they are both hand stamps?

Polimon,

show what you have, one at a time and I should be able to tell,

If you do not have expertise in GB Officials you should stay away from them as most of the overprints are fake,


Pagoda.

Hi Pagoda,

Not sure what you mean by "stay away from them"? These were all mixed in with others, and are not a specific area of focus for me. However, as I said initially, I find this to be a fun hobby, and what makes it fun (for me, anyway) is learning new things.

I don't know any other way to learn except by reading, and asking questions. I appreciate your willingness to look at them, but I still would like to learn how you know something was hand stamped? If the reasoning is because the one shilling is crooked, then how did you know that about the 1p? Or is there some other way to know this?

Here, btw, is another overprint:




I have five more after this one, all Office of Works: 3 Victorias, 2 KEVII.

Your IR 1/2d. Slate is also a forgery, the stops after the letters are the wrong shape,

Pagoda

Great! Something specific I can wrap my mind around! :)

Okay, onward. You asked for them one at a time, so here's the first of the QV's (not sure how I lost the focus on the top of the stamp, let me know if I need to take a different picture):

OW 1/2d. Vermilion, forgery, the overprint is at an angle which cannot occur on a genuine overprint,

Pagoda

Hunh. Upthread, it was suggested that I see if, under high magnification, I could tell if the cancel was on top of the overprint or not. This is one of the few that I thought looked pretty clear, with the cancel on top. More to learn, I see.

Okay, four to go. Here's the next Victoria: