Forgeries

§16: From The Stamps of Jammu-Kashmir by Alexander Séfi & C.H. Mortimer, pp 257-263.

The reader who recalls some of the preceding pages will need no reminder that the stamps of Jammu-Kashmir have, like those of most countries of any importance, received the attentions of the forger. Since the early days of the notorious Die I, this individual has been at work in his endeavours to deplete either the revenues of the State, or the pockets of collectors. But though some of these attempts, notably the huge fraud perpetrated by the postal officials themselves, have met with temporary successes, it cannot be said that any known forgery is really dangerous, apart from some clever imitations of the common new rectangular stamps.

The forgeries of Jammu-Kashmir naturally fall into the same principal divisions of the originals, namely, circulars, old rectangulars and new rectangulars. These again sub-divide into two sections, namely, forgeries to defraud the State by doing postal duty and those made for sale to collectors. Of these two sections, the former is always the more interesting, and postally used forgeries, of which there are several examples, possess philatelic importance that does not attach to the collector-forgery.

In our classification we have not retained the term “official forgeries” for the Missing Die imitations, but list them under the latter name. We must again emphasise the fact that they were not official in the sense that the State was, in any way, involved in their production. A true official forgery is one that was made by government authority and for the benefit of the State itself, the exact reverse of what occurred in the case of the imitations made by the postal officials.

The “Die I” Forgeries

The forgeries in this group comprise none made (strictly speaking) to defraud the revenues by doing postal duty, but were the work of individuals seeking to exploit collectors. Many are of so crude a nature that, although they may have passed muster in early days, they need no further reference here. Few of the remainder are more than superficially deceptive, and none is really dangerous. The first, and by far the oldest and most important circular forgeries are those of the notorious Die I, whose history has previously been given in Section 5. Here is the tabulation:

Evans considered that “rice,” a thin buff rice-straw paper, was not of native manufacture. Masson believed that the ½a in green to have been responsible for the emerald-green circulars of 1874-76, holding that these had been originally printed (though subsequently issued and used) primarily in order to supply demands from Europe and America, for the forgery, which was, at that time believed to be genuine. Die I forgeries are, as they always were, of some rarity and, owing to their historical interest, still command a selling price in advance of that of several of the genuine circulars.

Our next [topic concerns] two old forgeries of the ½a and 1a, which Masson considered to be from the same hand. They are rare and somewhat deceptive owing mainly to the blurred nature of their impressions. They always bear forged obliterations (if any) and the chief tests are as follows:

½a black long-tail: The central numeral, instead of showing three strokes, appears as an uncoloured square having a small projection at the left lower corner. Opposite this projection, the native character resembling an R in the outer inscription has its tail much longer than that of the character in originals.

The 1a black and blue: The straight stroke of the central numeral points to the Dogri character above it, which resembles a “3”. In originals, the space occupied by the two characters immediately to right of the “3” is 9 mm. In the forgery these two characters are squeezed up into a space of 8 mm only.

There is another old forgery of the ½a. It was first described by Masson, who added that he believed a companion 1a existed, and that a 4a might appear. At present neither of the latter have been identified. The chief tests of this stamp are:(a) the outer circle is heavy and the inner one light; in the originals the reverse of this is the case, and (b) the down-stroke of the character to the right of the Dogri “3” at the top of the out circle is straight, whereas in originals it is distinctly angled in the middle. Forged obliterations of the old seals are commonly found on the ½a both in brick-red and magenta. The table following shows the colour types of this second type of forgery:

Missing-Die Forgeries

The Circular Missing-Die Forgeries. The history and tests for the [circular] missing-dies have already been described. Most of them are very common at the present day, and a glance at our lists will convey some idea of the extent to which a remarkable fraud was successfully practised. These lists contain so large a number of additions to those recorded by E.D. Bacon in 1899 that we have tempted to believe that further printings had occured since his work was written. The papers of all additions seem, however, to be identical with those of the varieties he described (with the exception of a thin yellowish laid, which is so rare that it may easily have failed to come to his notice.) In our opinion there have been no later additions to the original crop of 1890 and, perhaps, a year or two following. All the missing-die forgeries were printed in oilcolour, but a yellow-brown that is found on the thin laid is largely soluble in water, though it is certainly not a true watercolour pigment. A tabulation follows:

The native paper is usually greyer, thinner, and with a much smoother surface than that of originals. The ½a and 4a are known printed in grey-blue on thick unsurfaced paper similar to that of used stamps.

As to the thin yellowish laid paper, this, as previously mentioned, is an original new rectangular paper having the control of “1888” and used for ½a official stamps. Both stamps and forgeries are rare.

As to the thin toned or pure white wove papers, much if not all of this is original new rectangular paper, a fact proving the connivance of the postal officials. Practically all the [listed stamps of this paper] occur on both the toned and white varieties.

As to the Type II entry, these impressions are far from common and seem to have owed their existence to some injury to the first forged die. All colours occur on both varieties of the thin wove, and only one, the yellow on toned paper, was known to Bacon.

Brighton Forgeries

The so-called “Brighton” forgeries from a large group of comparatively modern imitations of all the dies and plates of Jammu-Kashmir. All of them reproduced, by photo-process, the genuine types so accurately that illustrations would serve no useful purpose. As far as circulars and old rectangulars are concerned they can, however, be at once detected by their papers, which have no sort of resemblance to those of any original stamps, but they become deceptive and, occasionally, dangerous in the new rectangular group. The latter were first noticed in 1903. Many of the circular and old rectangular imitations were described by ourselves in 1921. The forgery of the 4a circular is still, curiously enough, reproduced in catalogues of the present day (1931) and the illustration has appeared unchallenged for at least 26 years. This forgery is at once recognisable by the form of the character immediately to the left of the Dogri “3”; it resembles a large note of interrogation.

Jammu Rectangular Forgeries†.

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