(Probably genuine)
Return To Catalogue - Bremen forgeries of the 3 G and 5 Grote stamps - Bremen forgeries of the 7 G and 5 Sgr stamps - Bremen - Bremen forgeries made by Peter Winter - Bremen miscellaneous
Note: on my website many of the
pictures can not be seen! They are of course present in the cd's;
contact me if you want to purchase them: evert@klaseboer.com.
ATTENTION: many forgeries exist! I will essentially follow the book 'the forged stamps of all countries' by J.Dorn in describing the characteristics of the genuine stamps. The stamps of Bremen were reprinted from new plates (and can thus be considered as forgeries) by the same firm that printed the genuine stamps: G.Hunckel. They were then offered by the dealer E.W.C Bredemeyer as 'reprints' or 'remainders'. Other forgeries also exist (even some modern 'proofs' made by Peter Winter; click here for more examples of these Bremen forgeries).
(Probably genuine)
1. In the 2 Gr genuine stamps the 'A's of 'STADT'
and 'AMT' have a small dot between the legs of the 'A'.
2. There is also a dot in the 'P' of 'POST'.
3. Two dots can be seen in the lower and upper part of the 'S's
of 'STADT' and 'POST'.
4. There are 24 ornaments around the central
ellipse.
5. Furthermore, there should be a curl in the ornaments at the
upper right hand side as shown below:
Examples of forgeries:
Rather deceptive forgeries
Most likely a Bredemeyer forgery.
Another deceptive forgery exists, with the circular patterns below the words 'ZWEI GROTE' too pointed (the circles have become almost triangles). Sorry, no image available yet.
More primitive forgeries:
There are only 19 ornaments in the ellipse surrounding the key in
this forgery, a genuine stamp has 24 ornaments. According to me,
the '2's in the corners are too thin and there is a white cross
in the bottom part of the key (genuine coloured).
I have seen these forgeries with a rectangular 'BREMEN' cancel (undecipherable) and a double circle town cancel (also unreadable).
Distinguishing characteristics of genuine 10 g stamps
1. The '0' of the '10' in the upper left corner
should be open in the genuine stamp
2. There is a white spot at the middle of the '1' in the '10' of
the upper left corner
3. The '1' of the '10' of the upper right corner has a smaller
upper part than the others
4. All the '0's in all four corners are flat at the bottom.
5. Also note the slanting shade lines below the upper left '10'
(above the 'BR' of 'BREMEN').
Deceptive Bredemeyer forgeries. There is no white spot at the
left upper '1'. The bottoms of all '0's are rounded.
Forgeries
Other forgery type with all four '10's rather badly done
A Peter Winter forgery of the 10 G
stamp
The forger Francois Fournier also made forgeries of the stamps of Bremen. The following forged cancels were used by him:
Fournier's forged cancels, reduced sizes
'BREMEN 5 8 5-6' in a double circle
'ST.P.A. BREMEN 29 7' in a double circle
'BREMEN-BAHNF. 84 67 11-12 V' in a single circle
'BREMERHAVEN 7 ?' in a double circle
'BREMEN 20 6 * 3-4' in a rectangle
'BREMEN 20 10 * 7-6' in a rectangle
If anybody has pictures of these forgeries, please contact me!
This forgery has the leaf-ornaments different in the corners;
different number of lobes, I have also seen this forgery with a
square cancel but I couldn't read the text inside, this is a
Fournier forgery. Also the key has a very small 'clover-like'
center piece.
The above forgery can be found in 'The Fournier Album of Philatelic Forgeries', it should be mentioned though, that a forgery of better quality also can be found in this same album (probably with the above shown cancels).
A nice website on Bremen can be found on: http://people.freenet.de/jfeldhusen/Bremenmarken.htm (in German).