What Tells You That This Hawaii 2c On Cover Is Fake?

I found this ebay offer:
https://www.ebay.de/itm/USA-seltene....m1438.l2649

As this would be something worth many thousands of dollars, I don't think it's genuine. I don't know much about Hawaii, only compared with Siegel genuine images. The genuine stamps seem a bit narrower and more detailed in some ornaments. What else would help identifying a fake here? (Grinnell it's either)

At a glance there appear to be a lot of things wrong, but the paper for the stamp appears way to white to be legit. It was probably cut out from some book or magazine illustrating them. I suspect that careful scientific examination will reveal a whole lot more wrong - including probably the cancel, and so on.

Another avenue to chase - I don't recall seeing the Honolulu postage paid CDS in black - it is always red in my memory. I haven't located a black example yet...

Its missing an entry postmark for the US mails - typically there should be a San Francisco PM on there as well.
edit: important to note that the SF PM was usually struck on the front, so it should be visible here.

The 1s 5p ? markings do not appear to have any business being on this letter.

I expect that the 1 5 may have originally legitimately been there, and the Honolulu PM and the stamp were added.

Visit the Post Office in Paradise web site: http://www.hawaiianstamps.com/missionary.html

The stamp is way wrong. The paper should be very thin and fairly translucent. Its proportions are wrong.

cfrphoto gives a great reference. Compare that cover and the front. Same Hawaiian postmark except the Siegel cover from the Honolulu Advertiser sale is in red (credit), the ebay front is in black (debit). Now someone will tell me that this could always happen, but I would ask them to explain why the postmark frame strikes are essentially identical but the month and date do not match? I suspect the marking was copied from the Advertiser cover(s).

Now look at the address. The Advertiser cover is addressed to Eliza A. Dawson in New York. The ebay front is addressed to Eliza A. Danzon(!) at the same address in New York with a matching "care of" notation. Again, someone is going to tell me this can always happen, "it was just a small mistake" in getting the name wrong. But we're piling up coincidences here.

7c should be the Hawaiian rate here (5c delivery to a ship + 2c ship fee) so at least a 5c Missionary is "missing" from the ebay front.

The blue 1.5 mark doesn't belong on a Hawaii to US cover. It's neither US nor Hawaiian. I am sure someone has an excuse for it being on this cover, but again, just how many coincidences are you willing to accept?

I'll check out if this is a Fox forgery by handwriting comparison, though it doesn't have the usual overall look of one.
EDIT: I don't think it is a Fox forgery, for whatever that's worth. The ebay front has far more flourishes, a different writing angle. Also, the use of an obvious fake stamp would not be a Fox "trademark".

The 5c Hawaii postage could have been paid in cash - there are plenty of covers where the Honolulu postage "paid" CDS indicates pre-payment of such. That said, since the ship captain fee was pre-paid via adhesive, one would intuit that the 5c would also be ... so I agree with your assertion that a 5c missionary should logically be present as well.

Obviously this cover is bogus as heck.
Your catching the addressee is a good one!
That makes the whole cover pretty much a fabrication, I agree.

thank you very much everyone, very interesting to read your answers.
of course one additional thing is always, why a seller with such a "rare" item does not let it expertize and sell it at real auction houses. this is usually the case if a "rare" item is not rare.

The obvious is the seller knows it's a forgery and is just trying to hook a bargain hunter taking a plunge. That person might bid 2% of catalog for the stamp alone, $5000 by my older Scott. Certification would cost 5.5% of catalog up front per the PF, so it is doubtful that that buyer would even consider sending it in. Even sending it in to confirm it is a fake (as proof to get a refund, for example) would cost $75 as a flat fee.

There is always the situation when the seller doesn't care if it's genuine or not, nor knows the value if it were genuine. If the item is stolen, a seller would take whatever he/she can get, and relatively quickly. The contrary story is that there is a recent news story of a thief who immediately sold the bulk of stolen items but consigned unique horse racing trophies to a major auction house and got an advance besides. The thief was caught because the auction house easily traced the real ownership of the trophies as part of its research.

The answer applying to collectors and dealers is that expertising costs money and time. Note that expertizing charges are based on catalog value, at least in the US. If it turns out an item is altered or faulty, the full charge applies.
There are many major collections and dealer stocks with a lot of items without certificates.

Also, the thinking goes "why should I pay for a certificate when I know it's genuine and perfect?" (Maybe I'm just dreaming that it's genuine and perfect.) "The collection will only be sold when I'm dead, and I won't care at that point." Further, "if I do sell it in my lifetime, the buyer can pay for the certificate himself/herself, and I get to use their money while it's being certified even it turns out to be bad."

And it can be a couple of months before an item is returned from certification. Difficult items can take even more time. Some European experts have a backlog of something like a year (so ask about that before sending and do not squawk if your item is taking more time than you would like -- it will just get returned). So a seller/dealer can potentially have a lot of money tied up (items and fees) waiting for certificates. That may or may not mean higher prices in the end, but that depends on what the seller's cost of money is. It also may or may not be better to allow buyers to submit items after paying in many cases to prevent seller's money from being tied up.

The Cancel is a Schaffer 2-8 ,8 non parallel bars.To me the bars look
too parallel...


The Dawson cover below:
The forger was inpired by this cover?
In the e bay cover the stamp is really to short ;as was mentioned
One question ;Dawson or Dawzon?
https://pastandpresent.com/2014/02/...nary-stamps/

I think the Dawzon question strengthens the case for the ebay cover being a complete fake. The creator misinterpreted the script lettering style of the original cover and lettered his/her cover to use what he/she thought was the same name.

So, is this stamp also a fake? They look very similar ... different 'sellers'?

https://www.ebay.com/itm/ETATS-UNIS...100005.m1851

The shape of the numeral 1 and the comma-like decimal point scream "European" to me. Is it just a coincidence that the seller is in Germany?

No, it's genuine and rather faulty. There are two radically different stamp papers for the genuine stamps here and there is no common "look" to them. There is no question the ebay front has a fake stamp, and that paper does not match the 24c paper to me, either.

Have a look at any catalog for Hawaii. It describes the paper for Missionaries as "pelure" which is extremely thin and translucent rather like stamp hinge glassine paper today, but much thinner and extremely fragile. I don't know about the genuine Honolulu Advertiser cover above, but the stamps that exist are typically backed by paper where an artist has painted in the missing parts.

More on the Dawson cover:
https://siegelauctions.com/2013/1045/Dawson.pdf

... and sold for 780 USD. 5 different bidders made their bid in the last 5 seconds. Impressive.

I certainly would not pay &780+ for a forgery.

To paraphrase Joe Penner, "Stamp collectors is da crazzzziest people."