Need Some Help Identifying An Eastern Silesia Stamp

Hi I just acquired a massive box of stamps and as I was beginning to go through it I came across what I originally thought was #16, but the overprint is not in red, it's in black instead.

Can anybody help identify the stamp?

Thanks a lot in advance.



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

I'm no expert in this area, but two possibilities spring to mind. Since you give it the number 16, I assume you are using Scott as your reference, since, as you point out, this would be Scott #16 if it had a red overprint. Possibility number 1: at the end of this set Scott has a footnote saying that "forged cancellations are found on Nos 1-30." so, if this is a forgery, possibly the forger just used the wrong color ink to make the fake overprint, and 2. If you go down to numbers 20 and 21 in this same set, you will see that there exist variants in black of the normal blue overprints (20a and 21a), so maybe this one has a previously unrecorded variant. My bet would be on the first possibility. Overprints are probably the easiest aspect of a stamp to forge, because everything else, the underlying stamp is correct, and forged overprints are usually created in order to turn a cheap stamp into a valuable one. In this case, though, most of the stamps in this set, outside of a few in the $10-25 range are cheap, and yours lists for $1.60 unused, so there would not be much reason to forge the overprint in order to make it an expensive stamp, but maybe they were forged for use as ordinary postage. This was a period (early 1920's) of great turmoil in Eastern Europe, and maybe someone thought that the postal authorities wouldn't be as eagle-eyed as usual, but, like everyone else, just trying to stay alive.

Thanks for the information. The stamp came in a massive box which I purchased from a really reputable dealer out in Victoria BC, Canada (I purchased another 10 pounds from the dealer, which they accumulate and use for their auctions as well as for kiloware sales.

Forgery

When I was working on them I found a lot of forgeries, though most were in the somewhat correct color.

Czech catalog is showing the 200h Hradcany SO 1920 overprint exists in two regular colors: red or carmine. There are known also trial prints in black or blue colors. The oveprint migh be genuine; more research needs to be done. If the oveprint is genuine, the stamp si valued at about $15-$20.

Just a suggestion that it would be much more helpful when instead of responding with a one-word declaration such as "forgery" that some information as to why that conclusion was reached be provided.

Does "forgery" mean the underlying stamp or just the over overprint?

If it is the wrong ink color is the font genuine? Was the original cliche used to overprint by the creator? If so, how did they acquire the cliche?

One word does not help anyone learn anything at all.

If floortrader says it's a forgery, you'd better pay attention.

There can be a lot of factors that add up to genuine or forgery. When I've seen that laid out here, often enough, parts are ignored by the OP or another poster who want easy answers. That doesn't encourage full explanations.

Also, giving an explanation can give forgers what they need to improve their stuff. Though nowadays, buying forgeries sold as such seem to be a popular thing.

Why?

Why?

You've called some things bad without providing multiple citations from the literature or scans.

Floortrader's proven to be a major student of forgeries and has what I have seen to be a world-class collection of them, of the times he's shown them. It's not made up of guesses. From my limited knowledge base, he's been correct every time I can recall. On the other hand, I've effed up on occasion and hopefully properly apologized when I've done that and corrected myself. Everyone else, your mileage may vary in the trust department.

Do you believe the Philatelic Foundation? You know, the guys that had its chief officer stealing from the reference collection and had the typist that was bribed to type out clean certs back in the 80s. Is everything all better there now and how do you know that?

I'll add, the stamp itself appears to be a forgery not just the overprint
IMO

Hy-Brasíl - For some bizarre reason you took offense that I think that more information was a good thing when rendering opinions. How on earth did you twist my comment (reread it) into personal criticism of Floortrader's expertizing acumen? It's not about the opinion, it's about one word answers.




No doubt. Everyone does. That is why it is good to get more than one word declarations. You make my point.




This is not about questioning Floortrader's qualifications or expertise. His bona-fides could be amazing although how everyone is supposed to be aware of that is beyond me. This is about providing information. There is always complaining about the expertizing agencies not providing enough background to their opinions and yet a one word answer here is great and unquestionable? I don't think so.




Not sure what that portion of your comment even means or what it has to do with asking for more than a one word opinion.

There was nothing angry or personal in my original comment which was actually more of an observation. Could it have been taken as general criticism? I suppose that it could have.

I am sure that Floortrader can speak for and handle himself and does not need a public defender. LOL

Your response however seems emotional and angry. I get it. There are a lot of conflicting personalities on this forum just as in life. I rub some people the wrong way and some people rub me the wrong way. Let's try and keep the emotion out of these simple posts though. Deal? It is such a waste of time in an already too short life.

Cheers