Is It Safe To Soak 1862 - 1880's Hong Kong Qv Stamps?

I'd like to try and soak off the old album pages from the backs of these stamps. Not sure if any fugitive inks were used in these and I'd like to see what watermarks (if any) I can find. The condition as you can see is quite poor so does it even matter if there are fugitive inks? If they fall apart while submerged (Which they actually might) it's no big loss.

I just tried a new way rather than completely submersing the entire stamp and paper. Let the paper rest on the water and slowly absorb into the paper from underneath the stamp. Within 5-10 minutes (maybe longer depending on the type of paper the stamp is attached to) the stamp will gently lift off the paper and most of the original gum will remain as well.

Just a suggestion, but don't blame me if they get ruined.

Take Care

Whilst the book is old, Lowe's Asia only mentions one early QV as being printed in 'very fugitive ink', that being the now SG 39a (30c grey-green). There's a note in the current SG Part 1 about confusing 39 with 39a.

Lowe's original encyclopaedia (even older, 1935) states "Immersion in water destroys the colour of all stamps wholly or partly printed in green after 1885, and many stamps in red colours are damaged by moisture."

Tazzmann's idea is a very good one, floating the paper off the stamp rather than the other way around.

Hope this helps!

I may be wrong, but these all look like forgeries to me anyway :(

Peter, I agree with you that they look a bit dodgy.

Stallzer, if you do want to take the backing paper off, try a steam bath not soaking. This is a lot friendlier for fugitive inks.

Interesting point Peter. Since they are in such bad condition I've really never given them a good look. They very well could be forgeries since the collection that these came from had quite a few other forgeries.

That was my first opinion,
I did not know them well enough to call.
The Pmks look odd as well.

Found this on the Klaseboer forgery site.

"Sperati used genuine stamps, bleached out the design of a lower valued stamp and printed a new design on it by photolithograpy. In this way, the paper, the watermark and the cancel are genuine. Sometimes he added a forged 'B62' cancel, usually in blue."

Could the 18¢ be a Sperati?

Stallzer,

I think it's a spiro.

I found this page:

http://stampforgeries.com/forged-st...en-victoria/

I can't find any reference to the 18 cents being forged but the postmark and the diadem have all the hallmarks of a Spiro.

The Klaseboer site also mentions the perforation difference - the genuine is perf. 14, the Spiro is 12 1/2.

Bobby

Forgot that I'd stuffed these in a desert magic drying book, here is the after-bath :)

All the stamps look real,let me check them .

From my forgery collection ---

stallzer; yes they are real forgeries..

Interesting discussion, I will need to look at a few of my Hong Kong stamps which I had put away.

One thing I did notice on some of the above stamps are the guide lines in the margins of the stamps? Are these guide line present on genuine stamps?

There are simple guidelines for these stamps:
1) The horizontal lines don't touch the margins.
2) The lower neck point sit's on the 4th line(not always though).
3) There is no line contour on the forehead face front or neck.
4) These are the major indications regardless of the value,no Wmk,
CC,or CA.



Otherwise check out Stampforgeries:
http://stampforgeries.com/forged-st...f-hong-kong/

Tossing aside the hammer and nail perfs on mine all of them fail 1&2.