Ionian Islands 1859

Greek Single-island and inter-island postal rates were required, as well as one that would cover mail to Greece, but there was some debate over which unit of currency should be used, the British penny, or the local obol?
It was decided to avoid denominations altogether and code the rates by color.
The genuine orange stamps don't have a watermark, the blue stamp has a '2' (this stamp was originally intended to serve as a 2 d stamp) and the red stamp has a watermark '1' (this stamp was intended to serve as a 1 d stamp first)
All three stamps were printed from the same plate, with only a change in color.
50,000 sets were recess printed by Perkins, Bacon & Co and they went on sale on June 15, 1859.
Charles H. Jeens engraved the queen's head after a Henry Corbould drawing.
A Corbould drawing also was the inspiration for the Penny Black.
Genuinely cancelled stamps are very scarce, so forged cancellations abound.
On June 28, 1864 Greece took possession of the islands, invalidating the Ionian Islands stamps and putting Greek stamp use in their place.

Genuine stamps

Genuine Blocks

Genuine used rare pair from a cover

 Forgeries

The original source of these forgeries is very much in doubt.
Fournier, Spiro, Panelli, Oneglia, Torres and others produced or sold these but there was obvious interaction
between them.
Most forgeries display characteristics of other forgeries which may in part be due to copying other forgeries rather
than the rare originals.
So, as a guide I am presenting groups (in no particular order) that have similar characteristics.

Type I

Queen has thick eyebrow and pointed nose
Large top hole in the end of the belt
The KP is joined
The right leg of the first K is lacking a complete serif
The top right of the N is curved

Type II

The key feature is the poorly designed eye
The right side of the last letter is too long and the left side lacks the extended serif
There is only one hole on the right of the buckle instead of 2

Type III

Torres Forgery

The queen has a staring vacant look
The top right leg of the K's are too long

Type IV

Spiro Forgery

The top hole at the end of the belt is large
The KP is joined
The left side of the last letter is distorted

Type V

The queen has a curved pointed nose
The eyes are piercing and heavily shaded
The buckle is smaller
The O's are smaller
The P has a short leg
The cancel that appears on others of this set is a typical B62 Hong Kong cancel

Type VI

Overall these are very well made
They may be from Oneglia or Panelli
They can be found with very large margins - these images were cropped
The key feature is the last letter which is tilted

Type VII

Fournier forgeries

It is well accepted that Fournier sold forgeries produced by others

These sheets from the Geneva Fournier collection are identical to the Type V above

Type VIII

The key feature is the wider letters and the narrow N
Several of the letters have the tops cut off
The queen has an angry look
The eyebrow is heavily shaded

Type IX

Unknown source modern

The key feature is the poorly designed eye

The right side of the last letter is too long and the left side lacks the extended serif

There is only one hole on the right of the buckle instead of 2

Assorted Primitive types