Potential for forgery ?

Material relating to the philately of the reign of George V.
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Tony
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Joined: Fri Nov 09, 2012 6:00 pm
Location: Norfolk

Potential for forgery ?

Post by Tony »

Just found this on Ebay - does anyone know whether it is genuinely from the period, or has it been 'reverse-engineered' from a genuine cancellation, and if so, could it have been used to create spurious FDC items ?

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/1924-EMPIRE-E ... SwA4dWJ68s

Tony
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mozzerb
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Re: Potential for forgery ?

Post by mozzerb »

It looks to me like a block used for printing an illustration in a book. There are some actual machine cancel dies about, but AFAIR they're not flat, but curved (due to the nature of the cancelling machine mechanism), and they're all metal not mounted on a wooden block. Also, of course, they have changeable dates and this one has the date fixed.

What's more (something which I just noticed as it became rather clearer when I flipped the image around! -- see below) it's got "fig 5." off to one side, so that is pretty much a giveaway!

Fortunately, it's dated 13th May, not the FDI of the 1924 BEE stamps (23rd April), so probably of limited use for faking (quite apart from differences).

As the eBay listing will disappear in a few days, the images from it are included here -- together with the first image flipped around to "unmirror" it.
Attachments
bee-block1.JPG
bee-block2.JPG
bee-block3.JPG
bee-block4.JPG
Regards
Maurice Buxton
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