I Need Help With These German Nothilfe Stamps

I have a strip of 4 that look a lot like they came from Mi. Block 2 (Scott B58). The paper has the correct watermark (swastikas), but the perfs are much larger (about 10.1) and the overprint is a little smaller.

Unknown stamps

Stamps from Block 2, for comparison

And just for fun, the original 1924 stamps. Note the lighter colors.


Does anyone know what these are?

Looks like a reprint, or fake to me. It would be great to see a pic from the back, to get a look at the watermark.

Some modern German reprints have watermarks, but not the correct watermark, in my experience.

This is from a forged souvenir sheet, a nachdrucke.

Is the "watermark" perhaps in gray printing (disappears in watermark fluid) or printed in oil (with no gum)?

As hy-brasil said, these stamps are forgeries. You can tell by the perforations. Compare them to the real strip of stamps in the second picture. The genuine stamps are comb perforated. The fakes are line perforated.

Thanks for the responses. Has anyone seen fakes of these before? And with these perfs?

The watermark, upon closer examination, appears suspect. Especially because it's white rather than black. These photos are of the 50pf using Clarity. It's hard to see when dry or very wet. I snapped the photos right as the fluid was nearly evaporated. The other 3 are similar.




These stamps have no gum, and I don't think genuine watermarks are supposed to change when the gum is removed. So now my theory is they are indeed forgeries (poor ones because of the perfs being wrong), complete with inky or oily "watermarks" which someone removed after the fact, leaving behind their ghostly remains. Is there any part of my theory which is obviously wrong?

rmatossian, I obviously agree that it's a fake/forgery. The watermark looks to be printed with white ink and rather sloppily done, perhaps purposely as the swastika is illegal in Germany where this was probably produced. The genuine watermark is well-defined.

I've seen forgeries of the souvenir sheet before though I can't remember if it was perf 10.1 or not. I believe there may be more than one forgery. They are often presented as "reprints" or "private reprints" and should all have "NACHDRUCKE" or similar clearly printed on the back. These stamps likely come from a fake/forged souvenir sheet that only had that imprint in the margin.