As Angola is these days part of the “evil empire of IGPC” (philatelic agency, which produces most of the topical stamps for small islands and developing countries), I was not hardly surprised when I lately received a selection of pretty CTO-used Angola topical stamps. But I was slightly amazed when they all turned out as complete and utter bogus (for some I suspected it, but not all).
The Samoa Times Express stamps are one of the most valued items in classical philately. So I was quite surprised to find the following stamp in 25€ mixture of old stamps I bought some time ago. As these stamps are much more common as reprints and forgeries than the real thing, I had very low hopes. But to my joy, it seems to have all the characteristics of a real stamp.
I was preparing some scans on unwanted (duplicate or mint) items for my stamp exchange website when I noticed few mint Spanish stamps that didn’t seem to fit into picture. The subnotes on stamp catalog confirmed my hunch- I had stumpled upon forgeries of somewhat common and cheap stamps.
The Yacht issue refers to a series of German colonies postage stamps bearing the image of the Imperial yacht Hohenzollern. These stamps were used in all of Germany’s colonies meaning Caroline Islands, German East Africa, German New Guinea, German South West Africa, Kamerun, Kiatschou, Mariana Islands, Marshall Islands, Samoa and Togo from 1900 until the First World War.
This issue was originally published in 1907 for Madrid Industrial Exhibition in Spain. A complete set contains six different face value stamps with pictures of King Alfonso XIII and Queen Victoria. The set was never valid was postal use, but there are used copies (both single and on letter) with exhibition cancel.