The Rare Sperati Forgeries

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PAPUA/BRITISH NEW GUINEA 2/6d LAKATOI.

This is the 'Holy Grail' to all serious Papua collectors. The Sperati forgery of the British New Guinea 1901 2/6d Lakatoi. Known to exist, I doubt a copy has ever been previously on the market in Australia. Leading Australian Auctioneers dealers like Rod Perry and Charles Leski have told me they have never offered this item in the decades they have worked in this business.

Perversely, the stamp has an old 1939 Royal Philatelic Society London Certificate (signed by keeper of the Royal Collection, Sir John Wilson!) saying it is a genuine SG #14b (today this has been re-numbered by Gibbons as SG #16 - Cat. Ł2,500). That Certificate and opinion is wrong, and again shows slavish obedience to Certificates can be costly, as the fake is worth MORE than a genuine SG #16! It is a Sperati forgery, and is quite possibly the only one now existing. Interestingly the Certificate is dated well BEFORE Sperati’s activities became widely known.

In the definitive book, “Postal History Of British New Guinea and Papua” by Roger Lee, on page 99, Lee states that only 2 examples are known, and shows (as does the BPA book) the small flaw in the left value tablet that distinguishes the fakes from the ”genuine” article via the minute differences that exist. The stamp is comb perforation ( genuine SG #16 should be line perf) and the frame size is 30 x 25 mm and should be 29.5 x 25.5 mm.

Sperati has taken a genuine 1d black and red Lakatoi stamp, and carefully (somehow!) bleached away only the outer red design, leaving the central Lakatoi, and printed his fake brown vignette in the same place by lithography. This is the ONLY time Sperati ever used this technique on any forgery, i.e. bleaching out PART only of a design. The differences from the genuine, as in all Sperati forgeries, are microscopic. The forgery is just so good it would be accepted by 99.9999% of dealers and collectors without comment as the genuine article. It was indeed so good it fooled the RPSL and Sir John Wilson!

Jean de Sperati was very incredibly clever in that he faded or bleached all of the design (or in this unique example, part of the design) of a genuine but low value stamp, and then printed his new design over the top. This way he ended up with the correct paper, size, perforations, watermark, and cancel (Although on this copy, the barred numerical cancel is understood to be a superb fake as well!) This stamp is sold with the RPS Certificate verifying (wrongly) that this is a genuine Ł2,500 stamp.

On that basis, my price of about half Gibbons for the genuine is quite attractive, especially as no copy has been seen on this Australian market for many decades, if ever. It would be a key addition to any fine Papua/British New Guinea exhibit. Indeed to ANY serious Oceania/Commonwealth collection. The scan is not too good re colour accuracy, sorry, but used an alternate program to the one I usually scan with. In reality the colour of this forgery matches the genuine virtually identically. Price Papua - $A3,500. ( Now SOLD - to a leading dealer! Info has been left on this page here 'for the record' of other students of Papua. )

PROBABLY UNIQUE TASMANIA 1892 Ł1 Q.V. “TABLET” FORGERY

I also have in stock the Sperati forgery of the Tasmania Ł1 1892 Green and Gold Queen Victoria. It is “used” with a genuine circular cancel "Hobart Tasmania APR - 1901", and is the ONLY example of this stamp ever seen by myself or most large dealers I have mentioned it to.

This exact stamp I have in stock is illustrated in the BPA superb book on the Sperati forgeries, and in the Bynoff-Smith Forgeries volume. It is believed to have been a “one-off’ attempt, and Sperati abandoned the idea of making more after this absolute perfectionist decided he could not 100% accurately colour match the “real thing”

The stamp is back-stamped with the violet BPA horseshoe: "Sperati - Reproduction" and is reference stamp numbered "169" also on reverse. The stamp is also signed/autographed in pencil diagonally on reverse - "Jean Sperati." As you can see appearance and centring is superb.

My Price is only $A4,000. An apparently unique Australasian stamp forgery by Sperati for $A4,000 is a bargain. A quite cruddy looking copy of this Ł2 Sperati just sold at Stanley Gibbons Sydney in late November 28, 2007 for $A4,770, so my $4,500 is a BARGAIN! Just LOOK at how UGLY that stamp was! - www.tinyurl.com/3xzv3u - DOZENS of those exist. The unique Tasmania Ł1 "Tablet" should be worth MANY times this - quite clearly. But I never was greedy.

GREAT BRITAIN 1880 2/- BROWN FORGERY

I also have just sold another very rare Sperati Forgery. The rarest Great Britain single face different un-overprinted postage stamp, the always fiercely sought after 1880 2/- Brown. The normal stamp is a rarity, SG 121, and is grossly under-priced at Ł1,700 as a quite tiny number were printed, and most were thrown away on the parcel wrappings they were used on. A boring little brown stamp on brown parcel wrapping seemed to appeal to no-one at the time to teat off and retain.

The replacement VERY large sized bright 1883 high values were a different story. Even its same design counterpart the 2/- blue was always far more popular. This Sperati used forgery is as always brilliantly done, and how you’d pick it as a fake is a mystery. This example came from Bynoff-Smith, and this exact stamp is illustrated in the Bynoff-Smith superb ‘Forgeries’ volume on British Commonwealth stamps. (Ditto for the Tasmania 1892 Ł1.)

It was priced at only $A1,750 and this was only a % of catalogue for the genuine, a very cheap way of buying a Britain SG #121, most especially the rare Sperati forgery of it! It was the only example of this forgery I have ever owned or seen offered, and the price in the UK may of course be somewhat higher than this - I have nothing whatever to guide me in this respect as SG Specialised does not price it! The famous 1/- green QV "Stock Exchange forgeries" (not done by Sperati) of which many 100s - possibly 1,000s exist, sell for almost this sum each, and are fully listed and catalogued by Gibbons.

A LITTLE ABOUT JEAN SPERATI

Jean de Sperati is universally regarded as the finest and most dangerous stamp forger ever to have lived. He was born in Italy in 1884 and died in 1957, living most of his life in France. His material was so dangerous the British Philatelic Association decided to protect philately and purchased his “stock” and printing blocks etc in 1953, for a sum said to be $US40,000 - an absolute fortune half a century ago. As a valid comparison of what $US40,000 would buy in that era, Harmers London sold the entire ‘T.E Field’ collection of Australian Commonwealth in 1948 for Ł7,500. It contained masses of proofs, essay, and mint Ł1 and Ł2 Kangaroos by the bucketload - block after block after block - pages of them, and dozens of used. The finest collection of the Commonwealth ever offered, it would readily sell for over TEN MILLION today if offered for the first time.

Sperati was so good, a mailing of 18 forgeries addressed to Spain was seized in 1943 by French Customs who has them assessed as being all genuine. He was arrested on a charge of 'exporting capital' estimated at being worth 300,000 Francs without a permit, and was summonsed to appear in court. Exporting forgeries was at the time legal if sold and identified as such, and free of duty or taxes.

Sperati would “sign” each very lightly on the reverse “facsimile” with easily erasable pencil, thus complying with the law! Sperati made fools of the Authorities in the long court trial by forging three more identical sets of the same 18 stamps in question, and tendered them to the court! The Judges were impressed, dismissed the capital export change, and levied a token fine for “disturbing the normal routine of the French customs service.” ( !! True !! )

Sperati was a master craftsman, and produced very small numbers of meticulous masterpieces, rather than the masses of low quality JUNK quality material manufactured by Panelli, Spiro Brothers and Fournier etc. He had an intense interest in chemistry and associated areas, so he was able to make his fakes from GENUINE stamps. This was a very dangerous technique, as the paper, size, cancel, perforations and indeed some of the design were all then 100% genuine.

Sperati is best known in Australia for his excellent 1913 Ł2 Kangaroo forgeries of which about two dozen are in collector hands. Despite the relatively large number available of this particular fake, they still sell for many $A1000s each and are highly sought whenever they are offered. They are catalogued in the now HOPELESSLY out of date ACSC at $2,500 “used” which is MORE than a genuine 1913 Ł2 Roo is catalogued at - and that is of course Australian’s most valuable regular issued postage stamp. (‘Mint’ Sperati Roos are in ACSC at $4,000 and also would now sell for well over twice this sum. $7,000-$10,000 for the next one to be offered would not surprise me one bit.)

Prestige Auctions in Melbourne realised over $4000 for an ordinary used example in their 24 January 2004 Auction. Showing just how strong Sperati prices are right now. Along with ALL high end Kangaroo stamps. As you can see this copy has a machine cancel - a clear impossibility for a heavy parcel! This was originally a ˝d Green Kangaroo which had the green colour bleached right out - but he left the postmark intact.

1913 Ł2 Roo Sperati FORGERY - ex Arthur Gray Collection; Choice looking "used" example of the remarkable forgery created by Jean de Sperati, who made his forgeries by "fading out" genuine used lower values. This ensured the stamp had a genuine watermark and cancellation and perfs. He then printed the forged impression by 2 colour photo-lithography managing somehow to get the ink UNDER the cancellation. Dated 1913 "N.S.W." c.d.s., well centered and nice margined, and as the Gray cat called this example: "extremely fine and rare". A trivial re-inforced corner perf not mentioned in Shreves description. It is estimated that only two "mint" copies are known, and about two dozen "used" copies - according to ACSC. With "Sperati Reproduction/114" handstamp on reverse from BPA. (Indicating the Sperati different type, not number of them made!) ACSC cat $5,000.

In the large section dedicated to Sperati forgery items at the Sotheby's Gawaine Baillie sale in January 2007, the Australian 1913 Ł2 Sperati Kangaroo die proof brought Ł3,720 (then = $A9,300) - a world record price for any individual Sperati forgery item. Several of these exist. After that sale Sperati is RED hot. This stamp shows perfectly the main characteristic of the forgery ... the fine white line from Melbourne to the "UN" of "Pounds". Sperati's forgery skill was so great, this looks as good or better than the issued Ł2. For complete details on the Gray sale, click - www.glenstephens.com/arthur-gray-kangaroos

A quite cruddy looking copy of this Ł2 Sperati just sold at Stanley Gibbons Sydney in late November 28, 2007 for $A4,770, so my $4,500 is a BARGAIN! Just LOOK at how UGLY that stamp was! - www.tinyurl.com/3xzv3u

I was delighted to read in the April 'Stamp News' that in Rodney Perry's detailed review of the 849 lot Gray sale, he rated my purchase of this as among the 10 best value buys of the entire sale. Pointing out rightly these sold for that price a decade ago, well before the massive rise in Roo values overall. These Speratis have in the past always sold for a LOT more than normal 1913 Ł2 used roos, so these should really be $8,000 type items today. Read a lot more about the amazing Jean Sperati here - www.glenstephens.com/sperati.html - and a real bargain at well under the out of date ACSC price - $A4,500

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IMPORTANT NOTE ... all my stamps - on this page or other pages are charged in AUSTRALIAN DOLLARS at the $A prices shown. Where I have used a ŁStg or $US price etc conversion in text on any offer at any time - that is to be treated as very APPROXIMATE as it may have been computed a while back. It was correct at that time, but $A exchange rates have been VERY volatile in recent times. Please use the spinning gold currency converter found on Home Page of my website to ascertain the current EXACT amount in your own currency according to today's mid-rate. Remember - I will always charge your credit card the $A sum shown for each lot, (plus shipping and insurance) and NOT the sum shown as rough approximation in a non-Australian currency.

There are NO nasty 15% "Buyer's Commissions" or other such outrageous fees added to the price YOU pay when you deal with Glen Stephens. A $1,000 Kangaroo stamp from me costs $1,000 plus shipping. You could bid "$1,000" for the same Kangaroo stamp from an "Auction" house (who in Sydney OFTEN owns the stamp themselves anyway!) and it might cost $1,000 plus 15% "Buyer Fee" plus 10% GST on that $1,150 = the "$1000" stamp is now invoiced at $1,265. All depends on whether possibly saving $265 is important to you I guess.

GLEN $TEPHEN$

Life Member: ASDA, PTS, APS, ANDA. ALL Postage + Insurance is extra. Visa/BankCard/MasterCard/Diners/Amex all OK, even for "Lay-Bys"! All lots offered are subject to my usual Conditions of Sale, copy upon request or they are outlined in full on this Web site. Usually allow at least 14 days for order dispatch. If you want same day shipping please go elsewhere! I am Sydney's BIGGEST STAMP BUYER: Post me ANYTHING via Registered Mail for my same-day cheque. Avoid NASTY auction "commissions" of GENERALLY 35% (12˝ + 15% + GST, etc.) AND their five-month delays! Read this for details. I stock Australia & Pacifics nearly 100% complete 1913-1980. Ask for my LOW quote!

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