St. Helena First Issues

 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.

A postal stone used by sailors in the1600-1700's\

Genuine Stamps

Sc1, Sc3, Sc8 & Sc9

Sc10, Sc13, Sc14 & Sc23

SC24, Sc33, Sc37 & Sc38a 

Sc47

Forgeries

Some 17 different forgeries have been found

Fournier Forgeries

Fournier sold forgeries from several sources.

There is no indication he forged any himself.

 Oneglia Forgeries

Recognizable by his typical cancels and being engraved.

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

Note the long pointed chignon

Queen's piercing eyes

Cohn Forgery

It appears he only forged the 6d

De Beukelaer Facsimile

Two different versions made by the Belgian chocolate factory of De Beukelaer and given free with their chocolates & biscuits. They bear the cancel "ST HELENA SR 24 01". The "SR" should have been "SP".

Unknown forgers

Crude forgeries with ovpt. color matching stamp color

Queen has thick eyebrow

S of ST> odd shape

Squinting queen

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.