France "Moheli " Fake Or Real

Hi all
This stamp seems so odd - it could be legit!
I'm interested and would appreciate comments.
Thankyou

The fingers on the hand holding the flagpole (among other points) show this is a genuine stamp, and not a Hirschberger forgery which is a relatively good forgery in the scheme of things. This is a common design used for most all French colonies in the 1890s and a bit later.

Thanks Hi-Brasil
Appreciate the feedback
This troubles me - but my eyesight is cactus.
I'll leave it to you experts.

Exactly what is the suspicious thing? The ragged/rugged line and patchy "1"? That's just from overinking/bad inking from printing done at speed, plate wear or a combination. Don't judge such old stamps by current standards – just look at the variable overall stamp sizes and centering they come in.

It looks like the " apostrophe " above "E" is touching at the bottom!
But again- I'm no expert and value member comments

Again, it's old-time production limitations. There are indeed Moheli stamps with separated accents but those accents can also come in various shapes if you look hard enough. These are tiny letters aside from accents and it is likely that a printing supervisor decided what was printed was "good enough for jazz". I doubt any postal customer at the time went to buy stamps armed with a magnifying glass. And it could be just a temporary artifact of printing with a tiny uncleaned blob of ink connecting the accent and "E". We'd want to see a whole sheet or pane to see if this connected accent is a constant variety.

There are stamps from other colonies with broken or missing accents in the country name and nobody seems to think it is any major thing.

The forgeries carry a different perforation to the genuine. If mint, the forgeries often have smooth, white gum. And the figure on the right lacks his navel!

I agree, something looks funny around the acute accent
Not mine.

Thankyou
Much appreciated
I'm amazed at the knowledge here !

@Pshann - there are several drawing differences:
1. the hand has 4 fingers - 3 for forging.
2. the fruit is round - it is flattened on the plate for forging.
They are hard to notice if you don't have the stamp in front of you.
The easiest to identify is by the vertical perforation:
3. the holes in the corners of the genuine stamp must be aligned with the horizontal and vertical holes (combined perforation) - in the forge it is perforation in line.
4. the genuine stamp has 16 teeth vertically - the forged stamp has 17.

Thankyou -
Brilliant stuff!

From my collection --

Thanks, floortrader. Everone please note that these forgeries were originally credited to Fournier and appear in the collected forgery books created from his stock. But these have been found to be made by Hirschberger, who took over Fournier's business after Fournier's death.



This is completely wrong.
• Genuine stamps are close to being comb perf, but are not, if you check enough examples. This can be proven by the OP's stamp and rod's example.
• Individual stamps (and forgeries) are slightly different sizes and since they are also line perfed, the number of teeth will vary. Check floortrader's examples, unquestionably forgeries. I see forgeries there with 16 vertical teeth and even 16 on one side and 17 on the other.

Use a proper perf gauge and as floortrader's note indicates, you can tell the difference between genuine and forgeries.

I will explain why with the combined perforation it is possible that not all the holes in the corners are aligned.
I found the explanation in the Michel catalog (also valid for French stamps which, as far as I know, were only punched combined)
In the corners at the top the holes are aligned, at the bottom they are not.



And yet it is a combined perforation made vertically.
I took the explanation from Michel:
die durch leicht verschobenen Kammschlag Linienzähnung vortäuschen =
which simulate line perforation due to the slightly shifted crest.
and if you are not convinced, you can check if the holes on the sides are on the same horizontal (which is less likely with perforation in line)
It is possible that the combined perforation is made horizontally on the sheet and then the holes are aligned on one side and you can continue the verification methodology.
I'm sorry that in the previous post I didn't give these explanations, which led to the conclusion that I was wrong.

You can find forged stamps with 16 vertical teeth



A minute ago it had 17 vertical teeth.



It would be good to notice the holes and the possibility that a tooth is broken.
I don't know how much precision you will have measuring the perforation in the way the holes look.

@cupram




Did you mean "comb" perforation? Kammzähnung, means comb perforation.




Literally:

that, due to the lightly offset comb strike, simulate line perforation.