It's always nice to see Crete stamps here on StampoRama!
Both the two examples of British Post Offices in Crete stamps in your original post are genuine. I guess this will come as a surprise to many members.
The stamp on the right is from the only position in any of the 10 or 20 parades transfers to have the incomplete circle that later became familiar in the many forgeries of this issue.
These stamps were printed using transfers each of ten positions that were repeated across the sheet.
The genuine stamp with the broken circle occurs in the fifth position of the second (and final) transfer of the 10 parades design and this transfer was only used for the brown stamps (unlike the first transfer which was used for printing both blue and brown stamps).
The positions (types) can be identified by constant flaws in the design.
This exception to the broken circle rule is characterised by having both (1) the broken circle and (2) a clear break in the meander in the right-hand border next to the K of ERAKLEIOU.
I wish I was good at identifying forgeries. I have a lot of "questionable" stamps that I don't even list for sale because they may be forgeries. I usually send them to a guy who has been in the business for more years than I (and I started in 1981) and he is pretty good at identifying them. Sometimes hes wrong as well, but as they say, these things happen
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