averkiev
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3rd White Sea Steamer
Some years ago I bought old card cancelled by postmark of 3rd White sea steamer type "a" with date 29/6/14 sent to Kasimov, Ryazan gov.
The text, written by pencil, was removed. I bought this card for 2 or 3 dollars in local antique shop and I think this card is genuine.
Recently I bought another card send from 2rd White sea steamer type "a" with date 21/8/13 sent to Ath, Belgium.
This card, in my opinion, look like genuine.
But both cancels having letter "a" and, in the same time, these cancels are different.
Postmarks have different sizes and various relative positioning of letters and distance between them.
In first case all letters are thick, in second case - letters are thin.
Whether there can be both these of a stamp original?
If yes, why it has been made two different stamps with an identical letter (type) "a"?
Thank you!
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averkiev
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second card
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Rasputin
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averkiev,
The 3rd White Sea steamer cancel on your first card, the one sent to Kasimov, would appear to be a forgery. The improper spacing (poor centering) of
the second "O" in "Byelomorskoye" and the odd shift of the "v" part of the "M" to the right, plus the hyphen jammed up against the "E" in "3-E," are
all red flags. When you add the fact that the address and message have been erased, it becomes even more dubious.
Your second item to Ath looks good. Here's a clear example of the same steamer cancel, but from 1914, when the Kasimov card was sent. As you can
see, the cancel is exactly the same as your 1913.
Attachment: White Sea Steamer 3.tif (73kB)
This file has been downloaded 35 times
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averkiev
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Thank you, Rasputin!
Yes, postmark from first card look Looks less accurately, than on the second card adressed to Ath. But..
I think that the erased address on a card is not important in this case.
It is more logical to make a fake beautifully - with the text and the address. So after all she can be sold more expensively.
I saw very many cards on which addresses and the text have been erased, but authenticity of postmarks did not cause doubts. It were cheap cancels of
Moscow or Petersburg and other other cities which meet very often.
If it is a fake it is strange as has got to a small local antique shop in the Russian province... It bring cards and both any junk old men and
successors... Very strange.
It is interesting that the stamp of Kasimova is imposed over a steamship cancel.
There is a question: is postmark of Kasimov original?
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Rasputin
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averkiev,
It's true that many people erased or effaced addresses and messages to maintain privacy - a few items in my prison mail collection have had that done
to them, and there's no question about the authenticity of the censor marks and cancels. However, if the message or something in the address happened
to show that the item didn't start its journey on a White Sea steamer, then the forger would need to erase it. I'm not saying that the erasure is
proof of cancel forgery, only that it adds to the suspicion in this case.
The Kasimov postmark is undoubtedly genuine, but it looks like it's under the heavier "White Sea steamer" cancel.
Finding forgeries in odd places is not unheard of. Back in the 1980s I picked up a Chinese Eastern Railroad cancel perfectly centered on a block of
four 1-kop. stamps from a small-time dealer who almost never had any Russian material for sale. He charged me $2 for it, if memory serves. I was
happy as a clam at this great good fortune until I showed it to then-Rossica President Gordon Torrey not long after. It jogged his memory and he
pulled out an exact duplicate of the strike on a postcard. Same date, too, and the same beautiful strike. Neither one of us was very happy...
Subsequent correspondence with collectors in Europe turned up a third example - also the same date.
Forgeries of rare material can turn up in odd places in one of at least three ways: the forger gets rid of his material to an unsuspecting dealer when
it is exposed for what it is, or the forger dies and his survivors, who probably don't know what the heck it is, sell it to the local dealer for a
song, or a collector unwittingly buys the forgery and some time later sells off his collection or dies and the forgery escapes with the rest of the
estate.
In any event, it would make no sense for the seasonal post office aboard the ship to have TWO serial "a" cancelers in 1914 when the original canceler
(yours used to Ath in 1913) hadn't suffered enough wear and tear to warrant its replacement, as evidenced by the perfectly good cancel used on my
piece in 1914.
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averkiev
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Rasputin, thank you!
Yes, I agree with your arguments. Moreover, now I already doubt about authenticity of a Kasimov postmark.
Kasimov postmark standing over a steamship`s postmark. I well see it in sunlight beams. Please look at the scan on 1200dpi below.
Also cause suspicions some details Kasimov postmark: "A" in Kasimov shifted to "K". Unusual "4" in 14. And very strange index "6" or "Б" in the
circle.
Will waiting for new examples of forged 3rd steamship cancllations with the same date.
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Rasputin
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averkiev,
Thanks for the magnified scan of the Kasimov postmark. It does indeed look like it's been applied over the 3rd White Sea steamer cancel, which means
that we should also be on the lookout for more Kasimov date-stamps like this, because it would make it much more likely that whatever "rare"
cancels they accompany on other cards or covers are also bogus. Who would ruin an authentic rarity with a forged postmark from a mundane place that
only someone who was born there could want?
Also, it embarrasses me to say that there is one more very obvious nail in the Kasimov date-stamp's coffin that I completely missed: There is no hard
sign after the "v." Since this is still 1914, Old Orthography demands its presence, or at the very least a period to stand in its place. This was a
very busy forger!
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averkiev
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Yes, Rasputin, you`re right at 100%!
I have been got so drunk by cheap purchase that has not paid attention to such obvious details.
Thank you!
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