Stamp Forgeries Of Finland

I'm pleased to announce my page for Finnish forgeries are online. +130 images. A lot to cover:



Genuine characteristics:


Descriptions of the various reprints:


A lot of known forgeries side-by side to genuine for easy comparison:


Postal forgeries:


Stories about forged postmarks:


Genuine 'Aunus' overprint compared to 18 different forgeries:


If you have suggestions for improvement, or images of other forged material, please let me know.

Check it out here: http://stampforgeries.com/forged-st...-of-finland/

Enjoy!

Great work, thanks for sharing your studies with us, most generous
Jon

....but I forgot to add that I am reluctant to check up my own copies of #1 and #2 with your reference, maybe I would get disappointed....

been meaning to ask the forum on how to tell the senate print 1881-1882 from the karta sigliata print 1882-1883.

obviously if there's a cancel with readable dates, but besides this how do you tell these 2 prints apart?

special note to Classicalstamps : hvem er du egentlig? :)

Sorsh:In 1881 La Karta purchased a new perforating machine from Lütke in
Berlin.This machine perforated stamps 12 1/2 and was actioned by the feet.It was used in certain printings of the Senat
The holes were smaller than the older 11 perfing machine.
Nevertheless the first impressions of the Karta used the old machine
perforating 11 in case of necessity.
The new machine was used on a very non-regular basis.Sometimes the new
machine was used to perforate the entire stamp(vertical + horizontal);
or sometimes the horizontal perfs with one machine & the virtical perfs
with the other machine.
Examples exist where 3 sides have the same perfs & the 4th another.
Example ;the 2 Pen are perfed on 3 sides 12 1/2 & on the left 11.
The 10 Pen is perfed on 3 sides 11 & on the right 12 1/2.
The 25 Pen on 3 sides 12 1/2 & on top 11.
Almost all the the stamps showing mixed perforations were used during the
first half of 1882.These are thus part of the numerous irregularities of the immpressions of the Karta printings.
Certain stamps are found even non perfed or perfed only verticaly or
horizontally;& pairs.

@Perf12

that sounds both interesting and unlikely at the same time.

i'll draw a parallel to danish stamp production around the same time.

we had a comb perforator around 1864, we also had a line perforator around the same time (late 1860's) the last prints of the "Scepter" edition was perforated with that, as well as the early 1870 edition (Bicolor)
the reason for this is that the format of the bicolored are smaller, so the comb perforator had to rebuild, while this stood on, only the line perforator was used.
the new comb perforator we refer to as KI (Kamtakningsmaskine I translated into comb perforator I)
mid 1870's the needles were so worn down that a new machine was taken into use (KII) and the KI was "retired" for reasons unknown perhaps busy production or repairs of the KII, the KI was again used in 1879 now with repaired needles, and from this time, both the KI and KII are used for the same productions, so we have prints of bicolored that has been perforated with both machines - but never, as you say the finish stamps has been made, 2 kinds of perforation on the same stamp.

the only reason I can imagine for this is that the machine has malfunctioned, mid production, mid "sheet", otherwise it would simply be a more workheavy process?

in the AFA catalogue, the 2 editions are listed at 12½ perforation, no mentions of irregularities (but this is not surprising for AFA as it's severely lacking even on the danish section)
Facit lists differences in the Helsingfors prints (as you mention) and is much more detailed, however neither catalogue shows/lists hints as to how to determine if you have a stamp from senate or charta, which is what i'm looking for.

so how do you determine that if you don't have these examples of strange perforations? or a stamp with a cancel date that steadfast excludes other possibilities.

As far as I recall from my 'previous life' (as semi-advanced collector of Finnish stamps), the "advanced" identification method for used stamps is cancellation date + location combined to delivery tables (there is a book by Herbert Oesch called 'Malli 1875 toimitustaulukot' which puts out when various print runs were delivered, and where. The problem is/was that not all post offices received new stamps at the same time, and as such looking at date alone does not get you the whole truth).

For mint stamps its a combination of general appearance, paper, color, perforation, plate flaws etc... The senate printing stamps are in general of cleaner impression and of more vivid color; Charta stamps (especially at first) had more blurred impression and duller colors (and color of 25p was water-soluble). Again there is another book ('Malli 1875 määritysopas') by mr. Oesch that goes through all possible variants in detail.

A more updated and digital format compilation of all exists in 'Finland Type 1875' CD (by Reinikainen, Murtosaari, Stone) issued about decade back.

Basically it falls down to having hundreds/thousands/tens-of-thousands of copies of the same, looking at the big picture and learning stamp by stamp. For example the 20p blue comes in somewhat infinite list of possible shades (the listing of 'major shades' alone is two pages long), and only an experienced eye of few (and I really can think 2-3 collectors when I say few) can say anything guaranteed... For rest of us going by 'simplified' different perforation is good enough

-k-

thanks for the information.

tried a search on the CD, not many came up, would it be possible to aquire that CD in finland?

B

I try to copy the above scans for reference but my computer is telling me I got to join some commercial website . Is this true ??

@sorsh....




The last time I saw a copy of it was few years back with asking price of 50 Euro. Not sure how many were made, but likely extremely limited number.

-k-

Page drawn from "Finlande" P. Grosfils-Berger 1947 on the perf. varieties:

Floortrader,

The images above were uploaded to SCF.
If you can not save them, you can download everything from the link at the bottom of my first post.

I wonder if this one is authentic or a forgery...

I believe the genuine stamps were produced on vertically laid paper.