JAPAN, Forgeries of the 1871 issue

Return To Catalogue - Japan

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I've seen some reprints of the 'sen' issues, which were made in 1961 (all four values printed on a mini-sheet). The inscription is '1871-1961' with additional Japanese inscription.

Very dangerous engraved forgeries exist of these stamps. I'll describe some of the older 'simple' forgeries here.

A stamp forger active in forging these stamps was Kamigata and Wada Kotaro.

Some examples of forgeries:

Forgeries of the 100 m and 1 s

In the genuine stamps there are 10 key-patterns at each side (excluding the corner ornaments). In the above forgeries, there are only 9 patterns at the upper and right hand side. The other sides have 10 key-patterns as in the genuine stamps. These two forgeries can also be found in 'The Fournier Album of Philatelic Forgeries'.


Part of a page from a Fournier Album with Fournier forgeries.


(Forgery with a non-existing 'NAGASAKI' cancel)

Some San-Ko forgeries:

'San-ko' left and right of lower black character 'San-ko' on top of upper black character 'San-ko' left and right of lower black character 'San-ko' left and right of lower black character San-ko forgery of the 500 m stamp

The word 'San-Ko' (in Japanese characters, this means something like 'forgery') is written in very small characters on the stamps:


(Zoom-in on the 'San-Ko' part)


Mihon forgery, the small 'Mi-hon' characters are placed at the left and right top of the upper black character.

Other more deceptive forgeries:


(Reduced size)

Some forgeries made by Wada Kotaro in the late 19th century:


(Two forgeries, apparantly made by the same forger, possibly Kamigata)


Reprints made in 1961.


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