Polish Consulate in Odessa, issued 1919. You might find this link helpful
https://stampspoland.nl/master.html?https://stampspoland.nl/general/navigation.html
Thank you for the info. Any idea how rare they are?
Thanks
They're rare, but you'd need certification for them, as forgeries outnumber genuine. This is from the Michel catalogue
These look like very crude forgeries to me. A couple of things stand out:
1. The Polish consulate postal agency in Odessa was only active for a very short time and closed at 31 January 1920. Most of the stamps shown here were issued in 1921 or even later and can therefore impossibly be genuinely used in Odessa.
2. the three rectangles around the word Odesa is the Odessa cancellation. Some of the stamps have another cancel across it, like the one bottom left that clearly reads Katowice. Very unlikely to have two cancels on top of each other like that.
3. As shown on Dave's scan, the word ODESA is in capitals on the genuine overprints, not in fancy gothic script with all kinds of decorative ornaments like the red "Sower" and the 300 mk Eagle green in the middle. (both are by the way 1921 stamps, so that disqualifies them anyway)
Pardon my old eyes, but while the scan of the page says "ODESA", the illustration looks like "ODRSA" to me. Now that is a puzzlement.
Could someone tell me where all these fakes are coming from? Are most of them old fakes done for postal use? Are there people out there trying to do this as a money making venture somehow? I've managed to accumulate some of these fakes through no effort on my part and I just ended up with them - they weren't bought because they were rare! So how are they making money for someone? Or are people just doing it for fun? I'm real real confused!
Creating forgeries has always been lucrative business. But back in the golden age of stamp collecting one needed considerable printing skills and tools. Nowadays anyone with a good inkjet printer can create forged overprints and countries with lots of obscure local offices or periods of (hyper) inflation are the obvious choices. Countries like 3rd reich Germany and its aftermath, Civil war Russia or old China. There are also many collectors of those areas and not everyone has studied the catalogues good enough to recognise genuine Denikin issues or Laibach or field post issues (to name just a few).
With the rise of the internet and especially ebay it has become even easier. Anyone can sell bogus items anonymously. The chance of disgruntled buyers on your doorstep demanding their money back is small and I think that is why forgeries are getting more and more outrageous. Anything sells...
Thanks for all of the info. Any idea if those overprints were made a while back or they are recent ones.
Thanks
In order to find out, please create high resolution pictures of the stamps.
Can someone help me get more info on these stamps?
Thank you
re: Overprint on Polish stamps
Polish Consulate in Odessa, issued 1919. You might find this link helpful
https://stampspoland.nl/master.html?https://stampspoland.nl/general/navigation.html
re: Overprint on Polish stamps
Thank you for the info. Any idea how rare they are?
Thanks
re: Overprint on Polish stamps
They're rare, but you'd need certification for them, as forgeries outnumber genuine. This is from the Michel catalogue
re: Overprint on Polish stamps
These look like very crude forgeries to me. A couple of things stand out:
1. The Polish consulate postal agency in Odessa was only active for a very short time and closed at 31 January 1920. Most of the stamps shown here were issued in 1921 or even later and can therefore impossibly be genuinely used in Odessa.
2. the three rectangles around the word Odesa is the Odessa cancellation. Some of the stamps have another cancel across it, like the one bottom left that clearly reads Katowice. Very unlikely to have two cancels on top of each other like that.
3. As shown on Dave's scan, the word ODESA is in capitals on the genuine overprints, not in fancy gothic script with all kinds of decorative ornaments like the red "Sower" and the 300 mk Eagle green in the middle. (both are by the way 1921 stamps, so that disqualifies them anyway)
re: Overprint on Polish stamps
Pardon my old eyes, but while the scan of the page says "ODESA", the illustration looks like "ODRSA" to me. Now that is a puzzlement.
re: Overprint on Polish stamps
Could someone tell me where all these fakes are coming from? Are most of them old fakes done for postal use? Are there people out there trying to do this as a money making venture somehow? I've managed to accumulate some of these fakes through no effort on my part and I just ended up with them - they weren't bought because they were rare! So how are they making money for someone? Or are people just doing it for fun? I'm real real confused!
re: Overprint on Polish stamps
Creating forgeries has always been lucrative business. But back in the golden age of stamp collecting one needed considerable printing skills and tools. Nowadays anyone with a good inkjet printer can create forged overprints and countries with lots of obscure local offices or periods of (hyper) inflation are the obvious choices. Countries like 3rd reich Germany and its aftermath, Civil war Russia or old China. There are also many collectors of those areas and not everyone has studied the catalogues good enough to recognise genuine Denikin issues or Laibach or field post issues (to name just a few).
With the rise of the internet and especially ebay it has become even easier. Anyone can sell bogus items anonymously. The chance of disgruntled buyers on your doorstep demanding their money back is small and I think that is why forgeries are getting more and more outrageous. Anything sells...
re: Overprint on Polish stamps
Thanks for all of the info. Any idea if those overprints were made a while back or they are recent ones.
Thanks
re: Overprint on Polish stamps
In order to find out, please create high resolution pictures of the stamps.