Forged Stamps of Marshall Islands

The loss of the colonies in the early stage of World War I meant that the prices for cancelled stamps increased dramatically. This gave rise to a range of postmark forgeries. Illegal use of genuine cancellers, with backdated use also exist.

The cancellers consisted of a wooden-handled metal unit with interchangeable single digits for the dates and a single double-digit slug for the year.

The general rule issued by the German Reichpost was that stamps with Pfenning values had to be cancelled with one strike of the cancel, preferably centered. Mark values had to be cancelled by applying the cancel twice. Some collectors, however, preferred only a single cancellation centered on the stamp. These Mark values are ‘cancelled to order’, thus not genuinely postally used.

Common to all is the cut off top of the postmark which would have shown the locality, as well as the date of 1/12 with a missing digit in the year slug, only shown as “3”.

Bogus stamps created for the philatelic market. Advertised in contemporary collectors’ journals by Australian stamp dealers. A few used on genuine covers. 3 different chops exist:

Commander Tashikawa

Lieutenant Kobayashi

Paymaster K. Tanura