Does anyone know if these have been faked? I know the occupation overprints have been extensively faked, and since these two stamps are higher priced items, they would be suspect. If they have been, how do I tell?
I am not aware of forgeries of these overprints. If there were forgeries you would determine that by comparing the overprint to known examples, noting such characteristics as font, font size, character spacing, spacing between lines, ink, and characteristics of the method used to impress the overprint, to name a few. For the occupation issues, a benchmark set of genuine stamps is helpful and barring that, access to literature describing the characteristics of genuine overprints.
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re: Hungary Zeppelin overprints
There also is no specific mention of forgeries in either the Michel catalog or Newall's (1990) "Airmail stamps: Fakes & Forgeries".
You should be quite safe from forgeries here, because these two stamps were reprinted in different colors from the regular airmail stamps for the purpose of then being overprinted. Basic stamps without the overprint which would serve as cheap basic material to be fabricated into higher priced overprinted stamps do not exist in this case. The 1 P was reprinted in orange instead of green and 2 p in purple instead of red. So, just faking the overprint would not do it here; someone would have to first fake the basic stamp.
But there is another reason why you are relatively safe from fakes in this case: the stamps are engraved. In order to fake an engraved stamp, using the same printing method, the forger will have to create a hand-engraved printing plate, which takes time and skill. You probably have to have years of practice engraving to achieve a satisfactory result. And once you accomplish that you still have to figure out the other obstacles such as ink, paper, and perforation.
So, forgeries made by recess printing are not common. Most forgeries of stamps that are engraved in the original are executed in lithography, or sometimes typographed (or these days are from a color printer). The different printing method gives the forgery away without much trouble.
Good point Rhinelander. There are no stock of stamps without overprints for the forger to work with in this case. Even if there were, they would not be as abundant or inexpensive as for example the Harvester series stamps.
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