Japan 1872 1/2 Sen Incomplete Character

Thanks for looking.

In my old Gibbons this is listed as SG57 but the new SG's just seem to refer to specialists. Please can anyone provide a cat number or all comments gratefully received.

I see a lot of "broken" frame lines, which character is imcomplete?

I'm also looking at an older SG, the 4th edition (1997) of Part 18, Japan & Korea, but it appears to be after some major renumbering that Gibbons must've done at some point.

I'm not sure, but I believe the major catalogue number now would be either 34 or 40, with 40, I think, being the more likely number, since there is a reference in the footnote to 40 to missing strokes in some characters.

In Scott, this would be Japan 9a (assuming that the paper is native wove, or 9c, if laid paper, but, from the rear scan, it looks more like native wove) Additionally Scott only lists a used example as 9a.

I'm sure you know, but it bears repeating, that the early issues are Japan are rife with forgeries. (I've heard that forgeries outnumber genuine by somewhere between 10:1 and 100:1.) So the odds are not good that it's genuine.

However, your copy appears not to have some of the easy "tells" of a forgery. The chrysanthemum crest has 16 petals (but please double-check). That's not conclusive in itself, but some forgeries often had a greater or fewer number of petals. The correct number for all issues of Japan is 16.

Also, a number of forgeries also had certain reference marks on them, indicating that it's a forgery. I can't seem to find them on yours, so that's also promising, but perhaps I'm missing something.

Finally, it looks like the stamp was engraved, rather than lithograved, which is also a characteristic of a genuine. But that's particularly hard to tell from a scan, so take that with many grains of salt.

There's at least one other set of characteristics to check on, which could rule it out, but I don't have those references at hand right at the moment. I could check on that a little later on.

I don't like to give false encouragement, but it may be that this item would be worth getting expertized. Since you're in the UK, I'm not exactly sure where would be the best way.

Feel free to contact me through this site, and I can see if I can find out what your next steps might be, if it passes that other set of characteristics that I mentioned above.

(The Scott catalog value, if genuine, is $1250, so it may be worth some additional examination.)

Let me just add that I'm not anything approaching an expert in this area (but I am studying with someone who is), so I could well be missing something entirely obvious, and I don't want to give you false hope.

-- Dave

LittleRiverPhil, it's the top character (first one below the upper left cherry blossom) in the left value tablet. It's missing 2 short strokes at the top. You can see the same character in the right value tablet has them.

I will add, just looking at it again, that the stamp appears to have a lot of scrapes on the surface (where the paper looks a little whiter), and it also appears that it's possible that those 2 strokes have been scraped off that character, so, even if it started out as a genuine stamp, it may have been altered to appear to be the variation.

Dave, I'm glad you added the caution because I detect what looks like scraping at the relevant section (put through Retroreveal). The stamp should be expertized to be certain of an ID.

Thanks Dave, I did count the petals and yes there are 16, also could not find sanko, mozo, mihon.

First thing I noticed on uploading the photo was the "scraping" at the top of the character but it does not appear to go far enough on the right to remove all the line (hoping anyway).

Thanks Jenny - will Retroreveal reveal anything from the back ?

Dave expertising can be done by ISJP in Germany if required, also still waiting for the publication of the 2 mon - will let you know when the article is published.

If you happen to be a member of the ISJP, you can take advantage of their free service, where you can send the digital image in to be evaluated. If it's ruled out as a forgery right then, you need go no further. Same also with their low-cost mini-service, although, for the postage costs involved, it might make sense to send to Germany for the full service.

If you have access to one, you might take a look at the potentially scraped area under a microscope, where you might well be able to see evidence of paper damage pretty readily. Second best would be a very high-resolution scan (say, 1200 dpi or higher) of that area. However, the microscope will allow you to adjust for depth, which would be lost with a scan.

Also, thanks for the update about the 2-mon fantasy! I was wondering where that stood. .... As I was writing my first reply in this thread, I started thinking that it was you who had asked about that, so thanks for the confirmation!

Jenny, great idea about trying Retroreveal for this! Thanks for running it through that.

the item is a forgery ... visit isjp.org for forgery notes

I looked over the ISJP notes and I don't see anything in there that would indicate the stamp is a forgery. Please explain why it is a forgery. What did I miss? Thank you.

I do agree that the stamp appears to show signs of being altered at the top of the character. It would require examination under magnifier and/or filtered UV lamp. Scraping is not the only way to remove ink.

the perfs are cut not torn, the paper is plain not native wove. the cancel is common wada type ...

get the ISJP CD on forgeries ... all plates shown

I'm sorry I didn't follow up on here. I did have a subsequent conversation off-board with the original poster.

We did come to the conclusion that it is a forgery. We looked at a handful of design aspects, but there are 2 that should've jumped out at me more at the start.

First, on the chrysanthemum crest, the outer circle around the petals should be an outer circle -- you should at least see a hint of a bottom layer of petals. If it looks like it was drawn with a compass, that's an indicator.

Also, the cherry blossoms at each of the four corners should fill those corners more fully. That's another indicator.

I do agree with khj that I don't believe this level of detail is on the ISJP site. However, they do document pretty fully the cases of the so-called "signed" forgeries, where the Japanese characters for "specimen", "imitation" or "reference" appear somewhere on the stamps (although sometimes very small, in the same ink color as the stamp, or possibly obliterated intentionally by a cancel.

That link is here: http://isjp.org/forgeryid/index.html Follow the links at the bottom of that page for examples of on each type of stamp from that era.

That's where I figured you might have gotten that information. Thanks. It's on my list of things to get eventually; looks like they expanded it pretty extensively.

I do agree that the chrysanthemum looks odd. I had noticed that, but no forgery information to base a decision.

Thanks for the replies!

k