They who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety. -Benjamin Franklin 07 Jan 2016 01:01:36pm
I discovered a Netherlands Scott 117 with an inverted overprint in an old collection I purchased. Scott makes no mention of inverted overprints. Is this because they are so common that it is not worth mentioning? Or is this a recognized variety in a specialized catalog somewhere?
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"The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing. -Edmund Burke"
I am suspicious of this too. Michel only mentions that there are fakes out there.
The surcharges are usually nice and dark as I believe they were all printed. This one looks like it is handstamped, and at a slight angle as well. One tell-tale sign of a forgery is that a cancel will be applied to help cover up the deficiencies between the forgery and the authentic item.
They who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety. -Benjamin Franklin 07 Jan 2016 02:21:42pm
re: Netherlands Scott 117 with inverted overprint
It is blue, but it does appear to be from an under inked hand stamp. I agree that the date stamp appears to be "(19)12" (some 11 years prior to the issue) but I could be reading it wrong. The strange thing is that the cancel appears to be on top of the overprint. The overprint itself is an excellent copy of the one illustrated in Scott's, but I think if there had been an inverted error it would have been discovered during the past 90 years. Since no other catalogs mention such, I will chalk it up as a forgery and keep it as a curiosity.
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"The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing. -Edmund Burke"
Bobby, it's a strange surcharge, and if a forgery, I would expect to see the forged cancel over it just like it is. Usually the surcharge is stronger than what your stamp shows. Maybe someone else will know more about these, like jansimon (home country!).
Just FYI, surcharge is the correct term. It's not an overprint.
I am pretty sure this is a forgery. Or a fake actually, because there is no actual upside down overprint of this stamp known. What has already been remarked I can only confirm: the cancel seems to read 5.4.12 which is too early for this overprint. The strange thing to this one is that even the date cancel looks suspicious. So you may find that the upside down overprint is under the date cancel (I doubt it, but please check), but the date cancel might be fake as well.
This 1 cent red is one of the most printed stamps of the Netherlands (2.2 billion made!) so to say it is easily available and quite worthless is an understatement :-) Perfect material for some smart person to play around with.
It is a pity I do not have access to my catalogues right now...
They who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety. -Benjamin Franklin 07 Jan 2016 08:35:20pm
re: Netherlands Scott 117 with inverted overprint
From the discussion, I am satisfied with the "fake" conclusion. What amazes me is that someone would go to so much trouble and not think to include a date which would fit the issue! Maybe a collector who tried to fool a friend as a joke? Regardless, it is a cool conversation piece, and it cost me next to nothing (maybe $0.001- that is nothing's neighbor).
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"The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing. -Edmund Burke"
With the stamp's low value, it could have been a practice run for the forger before trying to get away with doing the same on an valuable stamp. Nobody ever said that those people are the sharpest knives in the box. Most do after all get caught, and then have a few years to worry about dropping the bar of soap.
My book on Netherlands forgeries (by v.d. Loo) doesn't mention any forgeries of the 2 cent overprint.
It does, however, give a couple of forgeries of the corresponding 10 cent overprint in the same series. These differ in small details from the genuine. Could you post a better scan, so I can compare it to a genuine overprint?
With regards to the 10 cent overprint, v.d. Loo says that if it is inverted then it is always a forgery.
Apparently these forgeries were made for the packet trade. If they didn't have enough of a cheap overprinted stamp, they just made some more.
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