Fiume Scott #34 Extra White Dot

I am generally not much of a "flyspecker," but I was organizing a bunch of Fiume stamps today in my collection, and this one jumped out at me. Scanned below is Fiume Scott #34 from the 1919 set of 17 values. Notice the clear white dot between the M and E of FIUME on the stamp. Is this a constant variety or a one time oddity? Anybody heard of this one before? Maybe it is a fake.

Just wondering,
Linus

That, to me looks more like a "birdspeck" than a flyspeck! Just kidding of course.
But personally I believe it is not a constant plate variety, but maybe caused by a "chad" stuck to the stamp during printing. It sure looks like about the right size to me, and have seen this before on other stamps.
Whatever it is, it is a keeper!


Peter

Thanks for the reply, Peter.

Yes, I tend to agree with your explanation, because the dot is so perfectly round. When I first saw it, I thought a perf chad was laying on it, but no, it was printed that way. I know it is not worth much, but it is amazing what turns up in your own collection.

Linus

Sorry, but this one is a forgery. Compare the shape of the cross/squareness of the left and right ends:
http://stampforgeries.com/forged-st...1919-harbor/

Interesting clear variety on a forgery! I don't know if it's constant or not.

Interesting find - there is no mention of this as a variety in Martinas' specialized Fiume catalogue that I can see. Could of course be a forgery, although it doesn't have a crack in the centre of the cross, so that suggests genuine.

~Greg

Thank you, Greg, for looking for it in your specialized catalog. This stamp was found in a mixture I bought in 2019 at a stamp show in St. Paul, Minnesota, USA. There were 14 Fiume mint stamps that were firmly stuck to plain paper, like newsprint, in the mixture. I had to soak them off to save them, and I put them in a stock book. Today I was adding them to my Vario pages, and made this discovery. So this stamp is mint no gum.

Linus

Ha! Thanks for that link hy-brasil!

Looks like I got a whole bunch of fakes here, which explains why they were in this mixture. Not my area of knowledge, but I learned something today.

I appreciate the help,

Linus

Forgery Type one, there are three, does not have a crack in the cross on "FIUME" while the forgery of "POSTA FIUME" always has a cross crack. The stamp in the OP is a "FIUME" type. Me, I am not seeing a forgery in the OP, not that my opinion should matter.

Surface paper which flakes off after printing usually, not always, has a halo of color around the perimeter. Also to me, the white circle is smaller in diameter than the chad of the perforations gauge of this stamp, however it seems to match the diameter of the two white spots fore and aft FIUME. The real question is, is this a one and off, or can you find a similar example. Me, I think they are out there, but you may not find one.

The right edge of the crossbar on the OP stamp goes flying off to the right at a weird angle. Clearly not in line, and squared up with a genuine example, so in my mind it is clearly a forgery.

Linus

Linus, if you look to the link in hy-brasil's post, the right bar of the cross is not a straight corner, but slanted as well, similar to the listed original in the link.

This also discusses forgeries https://worldstampsproject.org/wp-c...original.jpg and mentions the lines in the sea. I find the upper second to the left of the flag pole railing section sea lines telling.

That is a great link, Parcelpostguy, lots of good information in there to study on all my Fiume stamps, thank you very much.

Linus

More info on the catalogue for those interested - Stamps of Rijeka, Fiume 1918-1924 in Croatian & English, by Ivan Martinas, who lives in Rijeka (current name of Fiume) and is a specialist in his city's stamps. It was reasonably priced - I have a good size collection of Fiume (many fake, to be sure), and love a good stamp catalogue, and have found it a great reference. I've only had it a couple months so haven't had time to go through my collection carefully with it to see just how "bad" things are :).

His site at http://www.fiume-book.net/index.html#home.

~Greg