Looking For Assistant On Six Cent Cut Square

Good morning,

I have been having difficulty identifying this cut square. On other forums folks have identified it as a variant of U11 while others call it a forgery, namely due to the poor quality of the engraving on the text, while others say engravings varied considerably and that is not always a reason to call cut squares forgeries. Thanks for reviewing.

Chris

I don't know what this is. Design U12 is all left facing and this is right. It doesn't look like any Washington bust I have seen. I even looked at potential Confederate State postage, but found none. The design is wrong, as is the embossing, and color. I would be interested if there is any others like this, but it is not an official US Postage design.

It is one of the many forgeries and bogus items made in Europe using the Star Die design.

See the chapter on forgeries in the UPSS 19th century catalog which shows that you have a Die10FGT2. Notice that the bust looks more like Ben Franklin facing right and that the stars have only five points not six. Also, the stars are not touching the inner frame line There are numerous other points that indicate that you have a forgery. Forgeries were produced to defraud collectors, not governments.

Thanks very much for the information, I greatly appreciate it!

Is the cancel also a forgery? Just curious as I do not collect here.
Regards mark

Sold with and without cancels the forgery cut square shown in the op is sporting a forged cancel. The majority of early forgeries were produced in Europe for the packet trade and were provided both mint (technically, unused) and cancelled. Also, the majority of forgeries are on wove paper. Paper, at this time, was the most expensive of the materials required to produce a forgery.