Cuba - Puerto Principe Overprints Resource

Recently went through a batch of Cuba 1898-99 Puerto Principe overprints (one pictured below). Scott 176-220. Done in 5 printings, with differences between each of the 5 positions in each printing.

Scott Classic is confusingly laid out and no help at all when trying to identify if the overprints have been forged - as they have been extensively. Edifil Colonias de Ultramar (Tomo X) is better on the printings/positions, but still not great.

Sharing this very helpful & extremely detailed resource - http://www.philat.com/FIL/Pto-Princ...Archive.html - for anyone else trying to sort through some of these. While it doesn't include many forgeries, it has hundreds of scans of genuine examples with their distinct overprint characteristics.

In the end - of the 14 checked so far, at least 12 have forged overprints, 1 genuine and another as yet unsure.

~Greg

A highly useful book (listed in the bibliography) is "Historia Postal de Cuba, La Intervencion Norteamericana, 1898-1902" by Carlos Echenagusia and published in 2012. It is bilingual and shows the needed alignment of the letters for each printing and each position.

To a lesser extent "Estudio Sobre Los Habilitados de Puerto Principe y Sus Falsificaciones" by J. L. Guerra Aguiar and published in 1971 by the Cuban Postal Museum. This book is only in Spanish, but does show the needed alignment of letters.

It is important to remember that these stamps were forged from the beginning and it is possible for a forgery to have a genuine contemporary cancellation.

Thank you for the additional info. Yes, I ran across 3 stamps with good looking cancels but forged overprint.