How To Detect Fake Offices In China Overprints

Hi everyone - could someone share any tips they may have in regards to OIC forgeries? In particular K17 and 18.

Offhand the real overprints are rather grainy-looking under a magnifier. The very few fakes that I've run across were pretty bad, cleanly printed in a slightly different typeface, crooked overprint relative to the stamp. At least one was overprinted on a used stamp having a US town cancel. There may be others that are actually dangerous, I don't know.

You plan is to do what? Collect fakes? Forge a fake? It would be better to just buy ones with certificates. Each is certainly at the price level where certification is merited -- they do get reperfed and regummed. Even an APS one, old or new, would work.

Like this one? Haha!

Fantastic pic - there are SO many things about this that are fake!

I like that one!

But this one is real, believe or not:

Various stamps were overprinted by the postmaster there, John Darrah, without authorization, withdrawn after a week when Washington found out. Some were used, a few covers are known.

I recently purchased (through a private collector) an awesome US collection, it has a couple OIC in pretty nice condition, with Bureau selvege if I recall (I'm not home now).

Overall the collection's value is a VAST majority of pre-1940 NH material (White Plains sheet, about a third of the Columbians with excellent centering, loads of Wash/Franklins incl. imperfs/coil pairs; Bureaus, PanAms/Trans Miss. etc etc.)

My question is, with the cat values so much higher (250% over LH) for NH overall--I just got my 2016 Scott Classic--should I piece-by-piece submit (APS? PSE?) the better items, or perhaps offer as-is to a respectable auctioneer when the time comes to sell?

I REALLY don't want to sell the entire collection, as it's in a Lighthouse Hingeless (pristine) album, it was purchased for a low four-figure amount as I expected many items to be regummed. I'm optimistic that the vast majority WILL return as NH not regummed.

Ideally I'd get certs for the better stuff, and any future consignor might sell to a discerning bidder appreciative of the original collector's pickiness.

I guess with Mr. Weis (RIP Bill!) no longer around I am a bit apprehensive sending a lot of items in at once to an unknown (to me) grader/expertiser.

Any thoughts on who/where to send primarily for ascertaining gum condition (with an eye for centering)

--Jim
stampguyaps177-681

I saw this stamp on ebay today, thought I'd share here. I haven't really seen many fake Shanghai overprint stamps, but this one is pretty obvious.

@jmt406

Yes this is obvious fake overprint. But I don't think the pic posted by @Arrows2Atoms is obviously fake. The real overprint for K17-K18 does look a little bit like a hand stamp. Not as smooth as K1-K16.

I think it is fairly obvious as well. Don't think I've ever seen a 10 Cent overprint, on a Carmine 5 Cent stamp.

@jmt406

LOL, you are right. It is an honest forgery. The fonts look good though.

I believe that this one is real. The cancellation also confirms contemporaneous use.

One of the features that I've noticed on many (if not all) OIC issues is that the A in CHINA is slightly lower, and possibly leaning to the right, than the rest of the letters. This has served me well in evaluating which stamps to buy for my collection.

Here is a used 510 with an domestic CDS cancel and an extraneous overprint beside a K10 with a Shanghai CDS cancel.

Great stuff Clark. Many thanks.

He is a fraudulent K-3

Thoughts on this? Guaranteed fake?



I couldn't readily find any references to spotting fake overprints for this series.