1902 Iran Surcharged Issue

Just found it in my sorting pile.

As with the usual persian overprints and my bad luck around the bare normal times, I am 99.99% sure it is a forgery.

Nevertheless I will post it here for your pleasure.

Question:
Is it a forge of Scott 215 ? I don't see a #215 on my 2016 Classic Catalog. From #211 it jumps to #222 directly without listing any of the others.

Does anyone know of a specific reason?




*** Moved by Staff to a more appropriate forum. ***

For Iran, the missing numbers have been stamps that have been delisted over time. Scott rarely re-numbers stamps after the numbers have been established for many years. As you found, they exist in older catalogs, and also older Scott album pages. So #215 has also been delisted sometime in the 2000s.

Both appear to be genuine overprints although inverted overprints were not regularly issued. The used stamp is probably CTO/favor cancelled as is common for earlier Iran/Persia. Even the picture in Scott looks correct except the blue overprint color was not regularly issued.

Additional points are that the total overprint height should measure 19mm, the bar should be 10.5mm and the leftmost Farsi character should be 3.5 mm wide in the genuine. The Persiphila catalog lists violet and blue overprints on the 1kr red, but neither is priced, mint or used. That could mean anything - issued but unpriced, or perhaps not regularly issued.

Thank you hy-brasil.

Time to grab my ruler and take measurements !

The Scott Brown International pages are quite popular (both the original albums as well as the modern G&K reprints). If you pick up a set, you'll notice that the Persia pages include spaces for all of the bogus issues that Scott listed in the 1920s but delisted afterward. So, these "listed, then unlisted" varieties, even though bogus, are valuable to people that collect according to that album.

ETA: the early Scott Specialty pages for Iran also have these bogus varieties, since they were based on the Brown Internationals.

I can't add anything but I believe the pencil on the back says 212 not 215. Still in the removed numbers.