If you can differentiate between engraved and litho, that's most of the battle, since the fakes are typically litho, all the genuine are engraved. There are only a
couple few engraved forgeries. I like this reference:
http://www.jacestamps.com/e-books/N...orgeries.pdfThe genuine issues through 1862 are a test of recognizing differences in shades and papers. That's obviously hard to do if you don't have any! There are a lot of no gum (and truly mint) stamps to be found, so that's a money saver if you choose to include those. Mint stamps are often remarkably fresh because of the paper used; don't think those are fakes right off the bat.
Mint #1s are around as you can tell by catalog values, but they can be misidentified #15As; #3s are often misidentified #11As and so on. I would start the 1862 and earlier issues by getting a couple of the 1861-62 issues. You then have a paper type reference as a starting point. And there are more shades there than Scott lists.
1865-94 issue: off center stamps are the norm, heavy cancels are the norm.
Posted 07/02/2017 5:48 pm
