Saint Helena’s stamps only became popular with collectors after the pictorial issues of 1902, This was not the case with earlier issues. Genuine mint and used early stamps are expensive. This probably accounts for the great number of forgeries and remainders.
Genuine Stamps
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| Sc1, Sc3, Sc8 & Sc9 |
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| Sc10, Sc13, Sc14 & Sc23 |
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| SC24, Sc33, Sc37 & Sc38a |
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| Sc47 |
Some 17 different forgeries have been found
Fournier Forgeries
There is no indication he forged any himself.
Oneglia Forgeries
Panelli Forgeries
Recognized by the 2 dots behind the queens's chignon.
Spiro Forgeries
The background pattern besides the heading has a lot of white space.
The "H" of "HELENA" has a very thin horizontal bar.
The first "E" of "HELENA" has the central bar placed too high.
Torres Forgeries
Queen's piercing eyes
Cohn Forgery
De Beukelaer Facsimile
Unknown forgers
Crude forgeries with ovpt. color matching stamp color
S of ST> odd shape
Possibly made in France given the French cancel
Very crude unique forgery
Odd bogus color
Remaiders
Residents needed only a few stamps and overseas sales were poor. Charged with disposing of obsolete Saint Helena stamps, Postmaster Thomas B. Bruce sold in 1904 a large number of remainders to a stamp dealer (Mr. Healey) well below face value after hand cancelling them with the violet grill. This cancel was never used for postal purposes and stamps with this cancel are not very valuable. Over 250,000 stamps were sold. On the positive side, they are popular with collectors who seek genuine stamps given the many forgeries.
