Classic Stamp Forgeries: 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