Saturday, November 16, 2024

Japan - 1871 Dragon Stamps

The Forgers
Wada
Wada, Kotaro of Tokyo was the premier forger of Japanese classic stamps. During the 1890's and the first decade of the 20th century, Wada prepared hundreds of thousands of good to excellent counterfeits.
Wada forged the Dragon, Cherry Blossom, and old Koban issues of Japan.
Most of his forgeries were printed from small copperplates of six (3x2) or eight (4x2) with each design hand-etched.
Some of the forgeries were signed with sankö or mozö, meaning imitation, in small kanji characters. Later printings have these characters removed.
Wada Postmarks

Hirose
Little in known about Hirose, his forgeries were first learned about by European collectors in 1894 in an article in German.
About five different forged cancels were used. These forgeries are not as numerous as those of Maeda and Wada but they are among the most deceptive,

Kamigata
This name was used to identify a group of forgeries that were being sold by the Kamigaiaya {Kamigata company). A forger by the name of Maeda Kihei was responsible for all the forgeries previously attributed to Kamigata. The Kamigataya was a Tokyo 5tamp and book business that in the early 1890's that sold forgeries of Japan, China, Shanghai Taiwan and Korea that were prepared to order.There is some evidence that Maeda Kihei was an owner of Kamigataya. His forgeries range from relatively crude early productions to more sophisticated later imitations. Many of his used copies have a circular dste stamp with th word "IMITATION" The imitations the Kamigataya sold included the Dragon, Cherry Blossoms and Old Koban issues of 1871-1879

H. R. Ramsden
H. R. Ramsden was an English resident of Yokohama, where he served as honorary Cuban consul. He was very prominent in philatelic circles in that city.
He was the editor of The Numismatic and Philatelic journal of Japan the first real philatelic magazine in that country.
Sometime during this period, Ramsden prepared sheets of lithographed forgeries of a least eight different stamps of the Japanese Cherry Blossom issue. The counterfeits were printed in an unusual format, consisting of 108 stamps (12 x 9) on grayish wove paper, 

Spiros
The Spiros turned their attention to Japanese postage stamps sometime prior to October,1875. Correspondence from Japan was scarce in those early days, and as a result the spaces reserved for these stamps remained vacant in most collector's albums.
The stamps of Japan he forged include the Dragon, the Cherry Blossoms, and the old Koban. All were lithographed.
The first comprehensive philatelic descriptions of the Spiro Japanese forgeries appeared in a series of articles titled the "Spud Papers" which were published in several English stamp periodicals between 1871 and 1881.
Many Spiro forgeries may be recognized readily and easily by the cancellations which were almost always applied by the manufacturer.

ABC Kurabu (ABC Club)
These forgeries were produced in great numbers from the early 1950's until the 1960's and sold mainly in department stores.
They are poorly printed by offset-lithography from photographs of genuine stamps. Despite the poor quality of the printing, the designs were faithfully copied from the genuine. 
These forgeries differ from genuine stamps in color and perforations as well as paper and printing method.

Most forgeries are easily identified with these added characters found at various positions on the stamp

48 Mon
Genuine
Plates 1 & 2

Secret genuine mark
2 dots in left bottom border

Forgeries signed with sanko







Unsigned

Hirose forgery

100 Mon
Genuine
Genuine has 2 dots in left center frame

100 mon Plate 1 & 2

Forgeries
Genuine left, ABD Kurabu right

Genuine & Kasahara

Unsigned Wada

2 Wada with sanko

2 signed forgeries


Unsigned forgeries




200 Mon
Genuine
There are no secret marks in the 200 mon
Left Plate 1 with dot in corner
Right Plate 2 no dot in corner

Forgeries
Wada unsigned

Wada signed Mozo

Wada signed Sanko

500 Mon
Genuine
Genuine Plate 1 & 2

Plate 1 block with secret marks (2 dots) indicated

Forgeries
ABC Kurabu

Hirose unsigned

Maeda signed
Crude dragons

Spiro elephant trunk variety

Wada signed

Unknow forger signed

Unknown forger unsigned
Primitive design

Wada signed