Classic Stamp Forgeries: November 2023

The "Woodblocks"

History

The Postmaster-General made it a practice to have a reserve supply of stamps good for two years at the Capetown Treasury since the Cape of Good Hope was so far from the source of supply, Perkins, Bacon, & Co., in England. Early in 1860, the reserves were found to be low and, accordingly, an order for 1,200,000 1d. and 1,440,000 4d. stamps was sent to London.

On June 15, 1860, the stamps arrived at the Cape. Although there were papers with the shipment the Bill of Lading had been lost. As a result the stamps were held by the Union Steamship Co. in the Queen’s Warehouse at Capetown. Postal officials forgot all about the shipment.

Meanwhile the imminent shortage of stamps became a crisis. The Government printers, Saul Solomon & Co., were instructed to print and deliver the stamps as quickly as possible. The design was to be the same as the other triangles. Charles Julius Roberts engraved the steel dies and the printing was carried out by stereotyping as Saul Solomon & Co. had recently installed the equipment for that process.

Stereotyping involved making of a mold of plaster of Paris or similar material from an original die. This mold, or matrix, is filled with a thin layer of molten typemetal and allowed to harden. The cast type-metal was then glued to straw-board and then affixed to wooden bases. The entire assembly was the same depth as type so that such ‘cuts’ could be assembled in the printer’s chase along with type. Printing was accomplished by inking the surface of the type or cut and impressing it on the paper.

The first stamps to be printed were the 4d. which were more urgently required. A ‘plate’ or block of 24 was assembled and sent to the press. During the process a number of the stereotypes were damaged or retouched. This gives rise to some interesting varieties.

The stamps were printed on unwatermarked laid paper with the first delivery of 150 sheets on Saturday, February 23, 1861. It is believed that the stamps were put on sale that day. On the following Tuesday, an additional supply of 850 sheets was delivered for a total of 24,000 stamps. The 4d. was printed in blue which varied from a milky shade to a bright blue for the various printings.

Meanwhile, work continued on the 1d. The block for this stamp was assembled in a group of 64 and printed twice on each sheet so that a full sheet comprised 128 stamps. A small supply was delivered February 27. By March 7, 100,352 stamps in 789 sheets had been delivered. The 1d. was printed in red ranging in shade from vermilion to carmine.

During the time the 1d. block was being assembled work proceeded on preparing a new block of 64 of the 4d. The 4d. original block of 24 was dismantled and some of the stereos found to be in good condition were included in the new block. Further, the two blocks got mixed up so that 1 4d. stereo was included in the assembly of the 1d. block and 1 1d. stereo was included the 4d. block. This was the source of the color errors listed for these stamps. Stamps printed from these blocks were delivered on March 9 and March 14. 597 4d. sheets with 1,194 color errors were delivered in the additional 76,416 stamps delivered. The 1d. deliveries included 1,568 4d. color errors.

In April, a further printing was ordered at which time Saul Solomon & Co. corrected the color errors and replaced some damaged stereos. These new blocks were used to print an additional 24,960 1d. stamps and 12,480 4d. stamps. The 4d. sheets apparently only had one impression of the 64 subject block in this printing.

By this time a letter arrived from England and the cases with the normal stamps were removed from the warehouse ending the need for further reprinting of the ‘woodblocks.’ The blocks were rearranged one more time in a block of 62 of the 1d. and 63 of the 4d. These were placed in the Treasury vaults. They were discovered in June, 1882. In 1883, 195 sheets of each value were reprinted in order to comply with requests for specimens from several UPU countries. The reprint colors are much deeper than those of the issued stamps.

Known as woodblocks, they were printed on from 64 separate type metal plates, which were cemented on to a wooden block.

NOTE – the excerpts describe metal dies attached to wooden blocks, not wooden dies as the name implies.

Types

There are 2 main die varieties of the 1861 4d, Die Ia & II. There is a also scarcer 1b

Characteristics of Type 1a & 1b:

There is no dot between G&E of POSTAGE.

The top of the ” P ” of” HOPE ” does not touch the line above it.

Specific to 1a:

There is a small dot at the bottom left of the U of FOUR

The O of FOUR sometimes touches the line below it.

The serif at the top of the P of HOPE is generally missing.

Specific to 1b:

The O of POSTAGE has a tail like Q.

The tops of the letters FOUR are nearly always shortened and flattened.

Characteristics of Type II

There is an uncolored dot between the letters GE of POSTAGE, nearer to the E.

The P of HOPE touches the line above it.

The S of POSTAGE is often joined to the line below it.

The occurrence on a sheet of 63 is; 1 of Type 1b, 22 of Type Ia and 40 of Type II

Genuine stamps

SG 13a

SG 14

Genuine Misprints (certified in auction)

Forgeries of the 1861 Woodblocks

Peter Winter Forgeries

As might be expected, Peter Winter forgeries are excellent. Many of his forgeries were made from photographs he obtained from the British Library under false pretenses.

They are however very modern (1980’s), so the paper is quite new. Also they are in very good condition for issues of that period. They tend to have a lot of extra artifacts in the background and the lettering is uneven. Note the large dot under the C of Pence.

Spiro Bros. Forgeries

Note the typical shape of the head and the single line on the chest of the woman in the above Spiro forgeries.

Note the typical Spiro cancels on these forgeries.

The "O" of "ONE" should almost touch the frameline besides it in the genuine stamps.

Also there are extra white lines in the outer frames, which don't exist in the genuine stamps.

Printed in sheets of 30 (5X6).

Panelli/Oneglia Forgeries

These forgeries very closely resemble the Spiro forgeries. The overly near lettering, the anchor with no flukes, the small letters in the bottom caption.

Fournier Forgeries

Fournier sold forgeries from at least 4 different forgers as seen n the first image.

The next 4 blocks (including the color misprints) are not attributed to any known forgers and may have been made by Fournier. Note the badly misshapen lower letters and the A that appears like a Greek delta..

Forgeries according to Earee

2nd forgery

The above forgeries made by the Senf brothers of Leipzig have the inscription 'Facsimile' in the design. Note the POUR instead of FOUR

3rd forgery

In the above forgeries the word 'CAPE' is written slanting to the left, the word 'OF' therefore seems to be printed lower

5th forgery

CAPB instead of CAPE

7th Forgery

The words ONE PENNY' are too low and too small.

Reprints

Issued for the 1950 & 1960 London Philatelic Exhibitions, cutouts of the Cape stamps have appeared for sale

1883 Reprints

Messrs. Saul Solomon & Co. reprinted 195 sheets of 1d., and a like number of sheets of 4d. in March, 1883. Of the former denomination, each sheet contained 62 stamps (having two stamps deficient), and of the latter 63 stamps (having one stamp deficient).
These reprints were made solely for the purpose of distributing specimens to the various Postal Administrations throughout the world, the stamps not being issued or sold to private collectors. The errors were not reprinted.

Note the very thin defacing line across the center of each stamp.