SENF facsimiles from france ... c1890

Began selling “art supplements”•High quality, steel engraved facsimiles•No intention to deceive collectors –took measures to identify their work•Engraved markings into stamp designs•Dealers sometimes covered or scratched away identifiers to use facsimiles as forgeries

 a colour-illustrated album page I acquired from france.  it offers short sets to the 1888 1yen value koban ...  it is a belle-epoch period piece ...  on inspection all the images are art-repros or facsimiles ...    a page from a senf -torres-schaubek  album :  (it exists as english edition also )

 the copyists or graphic artists of the time often shared their work internationally, and assisted global distribution ...  stamp packets were in demand.  ultimately, the UPU became involved in arresting the products appeal amongst collectors ...   the repros of withdrawn issues were deemed "forgery" under some national legal schemes.   the artists vowed their art production was imitative ... non-postal forgeries and hence, not subject to prosecution.   laws varied from 1 nation to another.

certainly, fournier of helvetia and maeda of japan - both had expert knowledge of postal history.

steel engraved

5sen brown is imperf, and of same design as the 5sen blue sheet image.

the kanji are simpler than maeda design.   TORRES

Source of fakes

 MAEDA WADA

   SENF  MOSCHKOW

   TORRES

SENF 10sen fake CDS

 

skilful 4YD fake cancels

cancels wrong size

kanji close to oval frame

no corner dots

bottom frame bent

TORRES maker

JU1  TORRES joke

4Sen ID Chart

I have been sortiing 4sen kobans according to chart shown.

• TORRES = MOENS
•  a difficulty is that designs are very close - 
• compare MK and WK - MOSCHKOW vs WADA
• KIKU crest is key separator
• then look to corner S and 4 vars ...
• simple or double frame lines ...
• using a pixel ruler that floats over page, one can see lower set values for some positions .  also look if frame lines ar
  e 1-2 ...

Value     Sum  Percent

----------------------

U          24   37.50%

TORRES     20   31.25%

IJPO       11   17.19%

SENF        5    7.81%

MOSCHKOW    2    3.13%

LENEGRE     1    1.56%

WADA        1    1.56%

                      

TOTAL      64  100.00%

4sen SENF

KANJI and ROMAN letters show anomolies

TORRES-SENF album page ...

TORRES  illustrations are irregular , dimensions and design elements vary widely 

10sen thin

SENF 10sen fake BOTA

• dangeous X but wrong size
• R frame bent  
• bottom frame bent
• R corner kanji design elements
• lower oval frame breaks
• TORRES maker

Plácido Ramón de Torres (1847–1910)

Plácido Ramón de Torres (1847–1910)   a.k.a Rosendo Fernandez, was a prolific Spanish engraver ... ...collaborated with Fournier , Senf (Shaubek) ;  J B Moens was his client  1864-1899

• TORRES style varied widely from crude woodblock prints to superb litho illustrations and fakes
• NK and OK mainly low values were faked as packet material
• design elements were changed randomly,  
• bent frame lines are common
• shades seldom match genuine, sometimes color change
• romaji or kanji varied widely
• cancels mimic IJP or fantasy

In the early 1860’s, the young Torres started his career in Italy, where he had grown up, making stamp illustrations for his patron, one of the first Italian stamp dealers, the editor and multi-talent Elia Carlo Usigli (1812-1894). Through his international connections Usigli sold those copies to the editors of the emerging stamp magazines and catalogues all over Europe. Once finished an illustration both made “private copies” in colour and put them into stamp packages, creating what I call the Torres/Usigli “minor forgeries”. So, nowadays, most 19^th century European stamp catalogues (Moens, Stanley Gibbons, Maury, Roussin and a large etc.) as well as the little known catalogue Torres published in 1879 in Barcelona, can serve to detect those forgeries of mostly single and cheap values

Torres only made lithographic copies. The ‘minor forgeries’ are usually unused and often exist in odd colours.  You can sometimes find small jokes or mockeries of the original stamp within the inscriptions. People often mistakenly think that these are accidental errors but he created them purposefully.

The ‘major forgeries’ are those with cancellations.- Gerhard Lang-Valchs

TORRES work reached Japan.  I have found many items there. foreigners likely brought  them and some are postally used on cover.

NB variance in width of kobans .

no embossing on 1Yen ....

REDRAWN vars exist ... search by value

 A TRUE CHAMELEON ...

Wood-engraving, etching, and lead-casting are just a few of the printing techniques that brought hand-drawn images to multiple viewers before and beyond the advent of modern photo-reproduction. Lithography, for example, pushed a kind of DIY-revolution in visual culture after its 1796 invention by Alois Senefelder. For the first time, artists could draw directly onto printing surfaces, leading to massive innovation.

  Later techniques, such as electrotype and photo-engraving, often pushed the human hand farther away from reproduced images.  

SENF 10sen fake

• curve bottom frame
• blue shade unique
• narrow L frame
• missing corner dots
•   doubled Yokohama  OB

Introduction ...

ISJP study is based on Wilhelmsen cataloging plates and makers. I have been solving some of weaknesses in category. Meiji woodblock was skillful, . Copper plate and  photo-lithographs followed..   sekihan

MAEDA  surpasses WADA as maker of koban litho facsimiles.  postcards and playing cards were bulk of his trade.   Spiro - a look back.... my view MAEDA is SPIRO.

all but 1 5x5 koban sheets sourced to Japan... the Aachen 5rin was acquired in Germany ...

In recent times , Gerhard Lang-Valchs  introduced me to PR TORRES of Spain.  so I began researching classic albums and catalogs of europe. increasingly more TORRES fakes are emerging ...

 Maeda-Spiro mystery

 

investigations have shown - stamp packets are more predominant ... illustrations or unused fakes  >  cancelled packet fakes  roots of philately  begin with facsimiles .  TORRES values to search below.

• classic albums of europe yielded koban illustrations. SENF offered steel engraved  facsimiles = these form basis for fakes ,  I have merged these in ID charts
• TORRES .early woodblock and litho imperfs are beyond the ISJP 2003 CD on forgeries.  illustrations bear cancels as fakes  from illustration  .> album catalog > cancel > stamp packet
• both OK and NK litho fakes derived from MAEDA KB4 and D11 underprints ... 
• MAEDA-Spiro koban  botas are scarce , implying sold as packet singles ...  Not 1 Spiro sheet has surfaced.

readers are urged to send scans of unusual collection items for inspection .   I am reviewing my archives and streamlining by topic and designers... StampCat database is constantly changing, so edits are inevitable to posts ...  use keyword search box . CTL+ will enlarge images ...

M C STRATHDEE  ISJP3399