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Swaziland Overprints |
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Swaziland
1889-90 Overprints
The vast majority of Scott 1-9 or SG
1-9 in collections or offered for sale are fakes, many of them made and
sold by the Parisian stamp dealer/forger Mirza Hadi in the early 1900’s.
Hadi acquired or had access to large quantities of reprints of the
Transvaal 1885-97 general issues (see note in SG after Transvaal Type
18) and ‘improved’ many of them with forged surcharges and
overprints of the Transvaal and Swaziland issues.
Identifying characteristics.
This scan shows a part set of genuine
and forged overprints:
|
Note the more consistent positioning and the
somewhat cleaner appearance of the forged overprints. The colors are
somewhat different.
Knowledgeable opinion holds that there were
60 copies of the 10s. printed. All of these should have the design off
center to the lower left and the overprint centered and just below the lion
and Boer in the shield.
This scan is a blowup from the above:
Note the slight upward tilt of the top arm
of the letter ‘Z’, which is consistent on all the forgeries I have
seen. There are some genuine copies with a similar tilt (Column
9?). Forgeries also have a thin right bar to the ‘w’, while most
genuine have a thicker bar.
 This
last scan illustrates an almost definitive test. A known genuine 2
pence (expertised by Peter Holcombe and confirmed against RPSL and BPA
opinions on several copies of the three top values) was cut in half through
the overprint and laid on top of a known forgery (Sismondo opinion).
Note the very slightly longer overprint on the genuine and the misalignment
on the letters ‘land’. This is destructive testing – the 2 pence
copy I use was thinned, but the stamp still serves a useful purpose.
Dr. Harvey Pirie was reputedly the first to suggest this test.
Other: The 5s. in the
genuine set in the first scan has a clean BPA opinion. The 2s.6d. has a
Sismondo opinion as a forgery.
If the name ‘Mirza
Hadi’ rings any bells, he was also reputedly involved in forgeries of
Italy, Persia and Bushire overprints.
There are other
forgeries, notably by Fournier, and several fantasy overprints (see Earee’s
‘Album Weeds’). |
