World Classic Doppelgängers

A carmine and scarlet one. The left looks like a ? Dec. 1910 and the right is 6 May 1910 cancel, putting both in the DLR era. At that time the ordinary paper had long been replaced by chalk-surfaced paper.

Scarlet on the left, carmine on the right; the dated postmarks correct as well, but what about the year(s) of issue?

The carmines were first issued 1906, the scarlets mostly 1910.

But first issue and printing can differ.

The stamps are Mi # 119 / Scott # 669, Germany 1949.
The bottom stamp in my opinion is fake.
Did you know that this stamp is forged? (Michel does not mention the existence of fakes)
I bought the stamp out of curiosity and for the possibility of a plate error (in the image posted by the seller it could be clearly seen that it has no K14 perforation but Line 14)
The differences from the top stamp (original) are:
1. in-line perforation
2. yellowish paper
3. Different color
4. The paper has no watermark
5. different printing method.
I wonder if anyone knew that this stamp was forged and any reference to it.

@cupram: If there has to be one fake among the two, the bottom one appears to be genuine, rather. It also appears a bit yellowish, gum-laden.

@StampGuy64

The stamp should be photogravure. The top one looks photo, the bottom one litho.
I agree with cupram the top one is comb-perforated as should be the case, whereas the bottom one may have been line-perforated,
Cupram's remark about the watermark is a strong argument. Only the top one has (the correct) watermark.

So, I cannot imagine why the bottom one, if any, would be genuine. As cupram wrote, there is so much wrong with the bottom stamp.

@cupram, Well spotted! Did you have a closer look at that Augsburg cancellation on the bottom stamp? It appears like it has been printed and not stamped. Or is that just the way it was scanned?

My Scott catalogue states "litho" for that issue.

By the by, NSK, there was a carmine frame for the 10d in 1902.

@NSK
Regarding Michel #116, I received a reply from another forum that it is "1980 Peter Winter forgerie"
I found a cancellation - (13b) Augsburg 2 dc - valid in this time period, but the one on my stamp still differs in the relative position of the letters.
I think the cancellation is also faked

Again, this thread is very entertaining, and annoying at the same time. The post above this has nothing but two scans of stamps. What are we asked to do with these scans?

Try right-clicking on the image, opening in a new tab, and you may see some more information.

You are just supposed to try and identify the two stamps, based on the viewable differences. In this case they are pretty obviously different colors, and at least in Scott different colors are called out for the ones issued first in 1912 and the later 1924 issues. That's not enough to help however, since both stamps have postmarks from before 1923 (1914 and 1917 it looks like to me). Likely in SG there are shades listed that aren't in Scott and that might point toward which printing is which.

It would not be the first time Scott gets it wrong with European stamps.
Other catalogues also contain errors, but Scott appears to be off quite more frequently.




Not on chalk-surfaced paper. That was not used in 1902.

The 10d stamps come with the usual two watermarks. There are a number of shades listed for each. They roughly fall into the turquoise-blue and greenish blue ranges.

Considering the 1914 and 1917 cancels, both are simple Royal Cypher Printings.