2d Harbour Bridge Postal Forgery Project

Even though I have posted these rarities in the past, I did not post the rarities as a study project. Here is the 2d Harbour Bridge postal forgery I have just completed.

The 1932 Sydney Harbour Bridge forgery was intended for use on letters containing forged Irish sweepstakes tickets. It is believed the racket was discovered prior to the 2d Bridge forgeries ever being used, but a small stock of the stamps was discovered at the house of one of the perpetrators.

The 2d forgery is a good copy, being reproduced photographically from the original letterpress copy, but is immediately identifiable being on unwatermarked paper.

The perforation was also incorrect. There are about 5 in existence that have not been defaced by the postal authorities with a manuscript X.

Hi rob,
I really enjoy the things you post!
Could I make an observation and possibly ask a question?

The bridge forgery and others among this lot

https://www.warwickandwarwick.com/a...logue/291511

Hi Just_fella

I'm glad you like my posts. What is the question?

Rob

Hi Geoff

I noticed that a block of 6 postal forgeries are being auctioned, and I mentioned only 5 exist, counting mine there are 7. I will need to thoroughly investigate the actual amount.

I do know only 20 were saved from incineration and many were defaced with a manuscript X, so there would not be many not defaced.

Arthur Gray was a merchant banker (died in 2015) and a multi-millionaire whose collection of Australian stamps in part realised nearly 20 million dollars at auction, the entire collection was worth around 27 million dollars.

The crossed pair belonged to him, he was not able to find a harbour bridge forgery that was not defaced.

Also what surprises me is that the block of 6 forgeries plus other forgeries has a starting bid of £1,000, considering the harbour bridge postal forgery is worth nearly $3,000 each (not catalogue value).

This is definitely of great interest to me and I will follow this up, thanks for the link.

Rob

Rob - Good luck. W&W should be able to provide you with a little more information. As I suspect this isn't their area of philatelic expertise, they may have simply alighted on what seemed to be a reasonable starting point. Or are there forgeries of the forgery?

Hi Geoff


I will ask them about that block of 6. There are 'forged forgeries' and many look really amateurish. The stamps being sold at W & W auctions seem too well made to be the forgery. The forgeries were made from a copper plate and the original made from steel plates, obviously the forgers would not have the skill to etch into the plate with fine detail.

As copper is softer than steel the etching would be sluggish as seen on my forgery, the stamps seen on the W&W website looks very defined for an amateur. I know an expert in forged Australian stamps, I'll speak to him on Tuesday.

Rob

Maybe it's just me, but blowing up the block of 6 a bit, they look like they are engraved (lettering and framelines)(!?) The engraved Bridges are line perf 11 and unwatermarked, too. So, I wonder...

Hi hy-brasil

Good detective work. The recess printed stamps are the 2d, 3d and 5/- stamps, none have watermarks and all have the single-line 11 perforation. Only the 2d letterpress has a watermark and a 10.5 perforation.

I enlarged the block 6 from the auction site and confirmed my suspicion that the block of 6 are original recess stamps printed from a steel die and not the copper die as was the case with the postal forgeries.

My dignity remains intact, and that a very small number of these forgeries exist without the manuscript X.

Rob

Rob

Sorry to alarm you, Rob. Did you contact W&W?

Hi GeoffHa

I will on Monday.

Rob