Hammonia And Bergedorf Local Issues

A few stunning stamps to add to my german states collection. These are my first locals, I may have opened pandoras box... Found info on the Hammonia set, still looking on the Bergedorf pair. Any help would be appreciated.

All reprints / Forgeries .

What gives it away floortrader?

BUBBA ------This is going to take more than one posting from me . But lets start with a history lesson about these German Locals and then later get into my collection .

First some background and a look back ......... First the whole idea of Philatelic Forgeries started with these German and United States local stamps . We are talking about the 1860's and 1870's .At that time all the dealers handled them ,because the publishing of stamp albums started to show them in the pages of their albums that people were buying . What they {the publishers } didn't realise was these were locals and of very limited supplies to the small community that had private delivery services and was not from a government . There wasn't enough stamps for the demand of all these new collectors in many different countries .

The "Hamburg" and other "Locals " was considered by dealers in general to be just colorful labels which anyone had a right to print {since they were not protected by copyright }. Since these were not "REVENUE " stamps of the government or any other governments the courts view them as labels . But dealers had customers wanting them to fill spaces in their now printed albums in many different countries {yes ,I have some of those early stamp albums }. This was the start of stamp dealers looking for someone to make and print fake stamps to fill the need of customers .

Ahh I see. So basically any true local stamp would have been used to some degree since there were so few to go around? I've read much about forgeries and reprints of many different stamps, especially german states, which is my main collection right now. So I assume and correct me if I'm wrong, almost all nice looking locals are going to be reprints that one would find for sale. Unless of course at a main stream auction?