This may be a silly question. I can never find value marks for the Danube steamship stamps. I have several. Most are forgeries. However I have a few prospects for originals that are in plurable shape. However, this one is in fantastic shape..almost like a forgery. It is 9.5 perfs nearly exact all sides..I have made sure it wasn't 10 perf over and over...so, could this be a reprint? It is very fresh. Also..does anyone have a list of values for these stamps, used and unused? Thank you.
The Serrane Guide covers this issue, but not in-depth.
Reprints were only made of the 10 soldo.
The best way to tell if the 17 soldo stamp is a forgery is to measure the horizontal bar of the numeral "7". Forgery = 1 3/4 mm Genuine = 1 1/2 mm. Also the forgery will have stippling to the right of the double "ff" of DAMPFSCHIFFAHRT. It appears that your copy has that, and so it may be a forgery.
Thank you for that info. Well..it seems they are all measuring 2.75mm exactly..hmm..that makes this more challenging..looking at the green one with just my eyes the illusion is its bigger but that was same measurement.
Note: I remeasured them. They are looking closer to 2.5 but I can't be for sure. Are they worth anything anyways if they are genuine? Thank you.
Ok..I see what u mean..it seems he first left two dot is in center..the 2nd right two it's almost touching..so in otherwords, the right two are definate forgeries.
I would say that the only one that has a chance at being genuine is the one at the upper left. The other three all look to be from the same printing. You will have to get the secret marks verified on the other one to make sure.
If you can upload a larger image of the first stamp, I can take a closer look, but like I said, the description I have on the secret marks is difficult to understand.
The secret marks that I saw are located above the "DO" of DONAU.
- the third and fourth lines are connected (see short vertical line between the two
- the fifth line if broken
Of course the stamp is in pretty bad shape, so any value will be greatly diminished. However, it's always nice to find a genuine copy of a stamp where forgeries are probably more prevalent than genuine.
Aww..so your going to probably laugh at me..but don't even ask me how I managed to take a pic with my magnifier over the stamp..lol..but do you see a secret mark on this one?..thank you.