1914 Documentary With Forged Narcotic Overprints

I am not sure why anyone would want to pay $9-10 + $3.00 shipping for these crude forgeries. The 5¢ stamp even has a 1916 cancel; the narcotic tax did not begin until the end of February, 1919!

In my opinion these need to be donated to some place like the APS reference collection so they do not find their way back to be sold again on ebay. To the credit of the person who listed them they are described as forgeries (after I informed him of such).

Here is the original listing:
https://www.ebay.com/itm/US-Scarce-...047675.l2557

Ron,

Personally, I would gladly pay about five dollars each for any narcotic stamp that I don't already have. Why?

1) The stamps are used as examples in upcoming catalogs of the font and color and size of a fake overprint. It's pretty hard to declare an overprint as fake unless you can illustrate it (preferably in color and at 300 dpi or higher and maybe even enlarged in size).

2) The stamps are used as examples in discussions of specifically why the overprint is fake, in this case because of the cancellation date, as you pointed out.

3) Counterfeit stamps, of all kinds, have a value all by themselves, to some collectors. The Scott Specialized catalog even has a whole section on fake postage stamps, some of which have considerable catalog values.

4) If cheap enough, a fake stamp makes a better space filler than an otherwise empty space in an album for an expensive stamp.

5) If a collector has a near-complete collection of fake narcotic stamps in a particular ink color or font or whatever, and the one that is missing from the collection is offered separately, then the stamp has even greater value.

And so on.

If anyone has any fake (or real) narcotic stamps that they want to sell to me, just let me know!

Jim

Jim,

So perhaps you were the "lucky" bidder on the two items I illustrated! The problem is that the 1914 documentary stamps were debunked as forgeries decades ago. No current album has a space for these stamps. perhaps forgeries is the wrong word. Would fantasies be a better term to refer to these stamps?

I have to disagree with your reason #4 - Would you take a fake imperf or part perf first issue to fill in that empty space in your first issue revenues? It would be interesting to hear Bart Rosenberg and Dan Harding give their opinions on filling in the spaces with altered stamps. A dealer will downgrade the offer when a number of altered stamps are filling in the tough spaces. It further casts doubt on the knowledge of the collector and the accuracy of whether other stamps may also have been altered or misidentified.

I also find reason #5 to be a red herring. A complete run of philatelic forgeries? The 20¢ handstamp NARCOTIC which was once listed in the Scott Specialized is a good example of filling in all the denominations of a set. All examples have been shown to be philatelic creations to fill out the set of denominations. RJA16 has now been delisted for this very reason.

Yes, we all collect what we wish to collect, but encouraging the forgers carries with it a risk that I do not think we should encourage!

To each their own I guess. I'm with Jim on this. There are a lot of forgeries that are highly collectible.

Counterfeits to defraud the government are highly collectible. Classic era forgeries such as Sperati and others are highly collectible. A few modern airmail forgeries are highly collectible. But they are all STAMPS, not overprints. And especially not handstamp overprints that have been extensively forged. People can collect anything they like, but to me reference works are really the only reason to collect handstamp fake narcotics overprints. And I would never put a fake first issue in a collection because a genuine example was too expensive. I might use a proof if I collected that way.

counterfeits fakes and forgeries have been and continue to both plague the hobby and be collectible, with many as noted have value. while a catalogue of them (narcotic stamps) will benefit the hobby it will also aid the makers of these items. for clearly obvious reasons it should be done so as to not aid current and future fakers. collectors owe it to themselves to learn all that they can about their specific interest areas. as for placing an altered stamp in an otherwise good collection I think it casts doubt on the entire holding and is best avoided. a second rate or space filler would be more acceptable for the purpose of filling a hole until a better copy comes along.

Speaking of which, the Scott U.S. Specialized several years ago added a section for postal counterfeits. This year, a corresponding section on revenue counterfeits is being added. Jim Kloetzel has been working with Eric Jackson on compiling it.

It should be noted that these are a very different item from philatelic fakes/forgeries. These are contemporary counterfeits created with the intent to defraud the U.S government by not paying the obligation in question (postage, or in the case of revenues, the tax). At least with the revenue items I am aware of, they are HIGHLY collectible and usually worth several orders of magnitude more than the very stamps they were created to simulate.

My apologies. I thought that this was a discussion about narcotic handstamped stamps. How it turned into a broad discussion about putting fake first issue imperforate stamps or proofs into one's collection, I have no idea. What I was referring to in the item quoted above, was the spaces in Scott revenue stamp album pages for the high dollar denomination narcotic stamps, RJA22 to RJA25. I would think that most collectors would probably put a questionable stamp in these places until a certified genuine example could be acquired.




Could you please explain how a comprehensive, detailed listing of most of the known genuine and fake narcotic overprints could possibly be a detriment to this hobby? By showing and explaining which overprints are genuine (and why), and which overprints are fake (and why), how would this information benefit someone determined to creating yet another fake overprint? I would think that the opposite would be the case?

Jim

Withholding "information" like you describe is an attitude as old as the hobby itself. It is also something I could not disagree more with. I'm not going to argue and try to persuade you to change your mind - feel free to do as you wish - but you contradict yourselves in the last sentence. How are collectors supposed to "learn all they can" if information are kept from them?

Staying with RJA22-25, I will disagree respectfully that putting a philatelic forgery in one's album, until a certified example comes along, is a desirable practice. As was stated previously, this casts doubt on the knowledge of the collector and on the other presumably genuine stamps on the album page. Guilt by association.

To illustrate with an actual experience that I had at a local stamp club more than 25 years ago. A lifelong collector, my senior in stamp collecting age showed us his album of the U.S. definitives from the 1920's and 30's. The rotary perf 10 set was complete on the page, but, alas, one could see that they were not perf 10! Would not doubt about proper identification of these stamps carry over if I had looked at the Washington-Franklins? The Washington-Franklin's are much more challenging to properly identify.

I believe that these philatelic forgeries of the narcotic provisionals should be avoided by most collectors. But, certainly, specialists like Jim who wish to publish a treatise on the philatelic forgeries, needs copies to document what the forgers were producing in the way of Narcotic provisionals. In my own one-frame exhibit of the Narcotic provisional RJA9-32 (16 pages) that was shown in the Court of Honor at New York 2016, there were two pages of these album weeds. Could I have exhibited more album weeds? Yes, but in my opinion, to do so would have cheapened the exhibit.

too this day many of the provisional narcotic stamp hand stamps have not been attributed to specific cities or users. until a positive means of id is established some items called fake may not be. as long as the items called fake can be proven as fake I have no objection to their being catalogued and exposed.
the addition of a revenue counterfeit section to Scotts is a long overdue idea.

M and M,




Yes, in my book there are three descriptors for the handstamped narcotic overprints:

1) Genuine overprints, with the city of the IRS district office identified;

2) Definite fakes, and why. For example, those overprints found on wine stamps are definitely fake;

3) And those that are probably fake, but that is not certain, as in most cases only unused stamps are known.

Jim

jim: the catalogue will become an asset to all who collect the narcotic issues. like all that you have previously done I am sure it is a scholarly well thought out volume.

There was an individual in Cincinnati who advertised hand stamped narcotic stamps in Mekeel's in the 1920's. He offered a number of denominations in three different colors, at least two of which there are no known users. The ad ended with "blocks available, inquire." Given the attitude of Internal Revenue and their response (NO!) to a Senator in the early 1920's (contemporary to the Mekeel's offerings), who tried to obtain examples of the narcotic stamps for a constituent's stamp collection, I am reasonably convinced that he was one of the forgers.

To add to Jim's comments regarding definite fakes, I think we can condemn those hand stamps found on documentary stamps that were printed by what George Brett termed letterset, using high etch plates on offset presses, because this method was only introduced in 1924, five years after the hand stamps were done in 1919.

Regarding M and M's suggestion that a counterfeit narcotic section be added to the U. S. Specialized. When I use the word counterfeit I mean that the stamp was produced to defraud the government of revenue. In fact the references to first issue counterfeits is used in that same sense. Contributors to this topic are using forgery or fake to identify productions that were intended to fool the stamp collector. The U.S. Specialized warns about these philatelic forgeries, but does not list them. I believe that is the correct editorial decision, even for the narcotic overprint provisionals.

There are also philatelic forgeries of the Bureau narcotic overprints RJA33-40 and again the U.S. Specialized warns about the philatelic forgeries, but does not illustrated or list them. Among these forgeries there is even a 50¢ overprinted, a denomination that was not produced by the Bureau.