Military Stamps And Early Air Mails From Japan

Hi all,

The Scott Catalog says there are excellent forgeries of Japan's military stamps and of their first two airpost issues.

Does anyone know how to spot the differences between the real ones and the fake ones? Can you point me toward any resources that might help?

Thanks!

JPR, you are from the "horses mouth" so to speak, so there must be a very dependable philatelic society in Japan. If you can not find anything you may try and contact the International Society for Japanese Philately ( ISJP ). Their website is www.isjp.org and the club is an affiliate of the APS.


Peter

For the 1919 airmails, the genuine have struts between the 2 wings and the (early) forgery does not. The tail is different in the forgery as well.

For the Military stamps, the overprint must match a genuine exactly in size and conformation, i.e., the same typeface. The Japanese catalogs show genuine ones but the reduced size may make comparison difficult.

There are certified or signed photo examples of most or all online when they come up for auction. You really should buy certified or signed stamps in these cases rather than (say) try to pick off one from a street fair run by yakuza.

ISJP is painfully slow to deal with. I ordered a couple of monographs from them and haven't heard anything in months.

Anyway, I'm not about to run out and buy stamps from the yakuza. haha. If there is no certificate for the military issues, I guess I'd just have to sit down at the dealer with a ruler?

The struts on the air mails would appear as no overprint? I mean: the forgeries without struts would just be all black between the wings?

This pair of the 1919 air post stamps (Scott C1-2) were in a recent collection purchase.

They have gum but are stained and in somewhat rough shape. They have the "strut lines" in them which from hy-brasil's comment is a marker of genuine. The collection they are in isn't great quality overall, so forgery is more likely than not, but having trouble finding a good site to compare genuine with forgery - hoping someone has a resource to point to.



~Greg

This might do, signed H. Bloch:
https://siegelauctions.com/lot_grd....ubmit=Search

Aside from the struts "business", the tail (like the upright part, the vertical stabilizer) has to match also. The struts are incomplete in the left stamp above, the tail is different, the cockpit is also crooked and wrong. Fortunately, the right stamp is genuine.

Yes, that's very helpful and I see the differences between the two. One of them being genuine is certainly more than I was anticipating.

Thanks much - Greg

Another factor I look for is the space between the two wings. On the left it forms the tip of a triangle and on the right, the lower wing is distinct from the upper wing.

Thanks for additional info dandow - appreciated!

Oops, I got my right and left mixed up. Sorry.