Excellent info, Terry, I know I have some of these from bulk lots, but I already figured out the were forgeries looking through the Tyler book. It is still kind of a neat feeling identifying them as such though.
Josh
If you have some of these issues of Crete (Scott catalog numbers 2-5), you may want to examine to be sure they are genuine.
These stamps were extensively counterfeited in the very early days of stamp collecting. In fact the one pictured above is a forgery.
To separate the forgeries, one needs to look at the small circle above the '10'. In the genuine stamps, the circle is complete, but in the forgeries, the circle is broken.
Forgery:
Genuine:
From the Serrane Guide, one can also compare the proximity of the A and K to the right, and the completeness of the triangle base in the upper left-hand area:
I hope this is helpful.
Cheers,
Terry.
re: Forgeries of Crete Issues 1898-1899
Excellent info, Terry, I know I have some of these from bulk lots, but I already figured out the were forgeries looking through the Tyler book. It is still kind of a neat feeling identifying them as such though.
Josh