Question On Zepplin Covers

I looked in a borrowed Michel catalog on some of the cancels, but I am still not sure of the authenticity of these....anyone have a quick opinion?

These are the backs of 2 of the covers.....the third had no markings

The 4 RM Polar Fahrt stamp is a forgery. The first cover with the "Mit Luftschiff" etiquette label looks suspicious. More research required. Possibly a genuine cover with added markings.

Germania....is that what is considered a small "P"? My interests lie in forgeries also....so it doesn't matter if they are forgeries for the price I paid. The third cover interests me because There is no reference to a "5" overprint in Michel....but there is an "S" overprint....! I'm gonna label the three of them as possible forgeries and keep collecting. Thanks for the opinion! Maybe sometime I can afford to get them expertized.

I have seen similar covers to the topmost example before (meter mail) but never with a green cachet (only red) and never with that particular etiquette stamp.

Sorry, not understanding the question.

I'm not a zeppelin expert but at one point in my collecting I did collect zeppelin covers and these all look quite fake to my eye. I would not pay anything for them. The cachets are wrong, the etiquette is wrong, the backstamps are wrong, the polar postage stamp is wrong.

As to the Brazilian stamp surcharged with "5", Scott has a note in the Specialized catalog stating:

Germania....the "P" in Polar ( ...the stamp overprint) is slightly smaller than the rest of the letters, or so I was informed...

Kimo.....I also think they are fake, but I like to collect fakes also...$5 was a good price...well, actually Euros....since they came from Italy.

Rogdcam.....yes.....I also suspected the polar cachet as being fuzzy enough to be fake, and suspected the green to be a telltale sign, but I am really trying to figure out what makes a forgery a forgery, ya know? Sometimes it helps to have actual examples. I do better with pictures......LOL

Polar flight cover: Please check the stamp. If it does not show Great Britain clearly or at all, it is one of the several fakes made as souvenirs for stamp shows.



You have to know what the genuine looks like first and quite well, otherwise a well-made forgery can fool you every time. Sometimes it's easy for a bunch of issues. More info helps. but the stamp forgery guides only work up to a point. Jean de Sperati was able to bleach out colors from low-value Kangaroos and printing quality high-value images in their place, so they had correct watermarks and paper.

Consider wild mushroom picking. You need to learn the characteristics of an edible species exactly, then go on to another and another. If in your hunting, something doesn't match the ones you know exactly, you don't touch it. Somebody regarded as an expert dies or gets horribly poisoned all the time by getting careless. At least the result isn't as extreme when buying stamps; it's a lesson learned.

Here is an interesting 2013 article on the Parahyba/Paraiba Provisional:

https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B7y...7JZ1cLJD6aaA

linked from this page:

http://www.fefibra.org.br/textos.asp?id=381

Thank You Hi-brasil and Cjd !!

"If in your hunting, something doesn't match the ones you know exactly, you don't touch it"

Hi Brasil, thats the problem.....finding truth in a world of fakes! Gotta find a real one first!

@rick2
If the 4 Mark stamp has a perforation in the line, it is fake (private printing).
The postal cancellation Friedrichshafen (Bodensee) is known to be forged.
You can check the cancellation database of the "stampsx.com" website. two examples:

Cupram- Thank You for the info!!!