Lithographed, on transversely-laid paper, very thin and soft, sometimes very white, but more generally of a dirty, yellowish-brown tinge. I believe these latter are soaked in coffee, to give them the appearance of being very old. There is no watermark, neither is there any net-work pattern over the face of the stamp. The front of the tail of the 2 is blunt, as though broken off. The back end of the tail curls upwards, but not inwards. None of the lettering is sunken. The cross-strokes at the top and bottom of the R of RIGSBANK are not at all prominent. The 1 is the same height as the R. The top part of the G does not come forward enough, and so it is not level with the bottom part. The S is almost equidistant between the G and the B. The A is not squeezed up, and the sides spread out well. The lower tail of the K is considerably larger and longer than the upper one. The S of SKILLING is not centrally under the R of RIGSBANK, but is too much to the right, and it is very much larger than the R. The two tail-strokes of the K of SKILLING meet a good deal above the center of the letter. The bottoms of the letters KI touch each other, but not the others. The letters LL are far apart. The next I is not near the last L, and its cross-strokes are very small, and indistinct. The G is rather taller than the N, and tolerably close to it. The foot of the K touches the border. There is no stop after SKILLING, but there is a small hyphen after RIGSBANK. The colored line, immediately round the center of the stamp, is of one uniform thickness all the way round. The lower part of the crown, from which the arches spring, is not divided into compartments at all, but contains a straight row of eight dots, all of the same size and shape. There are four dots on the central arch, very small, but quite distinct. The cross on the top of the crown is small, but very distinct; and its cross-bar is thicker than the upright stroke. There is no hyphen after POST. The little piece of dark background, behind the cross, on the top of the crown, is of an oblong shape, and very dark, standing out prominently from the lighter portion of the stamp. The four places in the arches of the crown, where the dark background shows through, are all large ovals of equal size. Outside the circle which contains FRIMAERKE, etc., there is no white rim, except just for a very little way at the very top. The floral work, outside the circle, is broken up into separate, crescent-shaped ornaments; and very few of them touch the outer line of the boundary. There is no fleur-de-lys in any of the corners. The central coil of the post-horn is quite small, and it does not encroach at all upon the bell or the mouthpiece. It is shaded with a few short transverse strokes, very different from the clear, colored dots in the genuine, which are perfectly round. There is a very small, white spot after KGL, and it is equidistant from the L and from the P of POST.

This is very much better than the last, and I should call it a dangerous forgery; in fact, I was taken in by it myself a few years ago. Litho- graphed, on wove paper, rather thinner than the genuine; watermarked with a crown. How the forgers have managed to imitate this watermark I cannot say; but it seems to me that the crown has been embossed on the stamp (by means of an oiled die ?) with heavy pressure, and then smoothed flat again, leaving its traces on the stamp. The watermark is visible, both looking at the light through the stamp, and also when the stamp is lying on the table. It is rather different from the genuine watermark, somewhat larger, and neater; but is otherwise a very good imitation. The paper is only very slightly yellowish, and there is no net-work pattern over the face of the stamp. I have seen one or two copies of this forgery, steeped in some dirty concoction, like those of the last-described counterfeit; but most of them are on white paper. The front of the tail of the 2 is rounded downwards, and points to the S of RIGSBANK. The back end of the tail curls upwards, but not inwards. None of the lettering is sunken. The R of RIGSBANK has hardly any bottom-stroke. The I is taller than the R, as in the genuine. The G is badly shaped, the shoulder is cut slantingly, and the top comes too much forward. The S is exactly equidistant from the G and B. The A is not squeezed up. The lower tail of the K is larger than the upper one. The hyphen after RIGSBANK touches the outline of the circle, but it does not touch in the genuine stamps. In the word SKILLING, the S is under the R of RIGSBANK, as in the genuine. The two tail-strokes of the K meet too high up. The bottoms of the letters KILLIN do not touch each other. The first I has no cross-strokes. The letters LL are not close together, and they lean away from each other at the tops. The next I is placed at an equal distance from the L and the N, and the cross-strokes do not show on the right-hand side. The G is the same size as the N, but is placed on a lower level. The stop after SKILLING is not near the outline of the circle at all. The colored line, immediately outside the central circle, is the same breadth all the way round. The lower part of the crown, from which the arches spring, is not divided into compartments at all, and bears a row of nine oblong dots. There are two dots on the central arch, as in the genuine, but they are very much too small. The cross on the top of the crown is very distinct, though the ball on which it rests is almost invisible. Both strokes of the cross are about the same thickness, and it is perfectly upright. There is a hyphen after the word POST, but only one of its ends is cut square; the other is more or less rounded, and it is level with about the middle of the T. The little piece of dark background, behind the cross, is quite circular in shape, and stands out too prominently from the background, though not so much so as in the last counterfeit. The dark places in the arches of the crown are very like those of the genuine, except that the outer ones are rather too large, and the inner ones are not triangular in shape. There is no white line running round the outer rim of the dark circle. Many of the crescent-shaped ornaments of the scroll-work touch each other, as in the genuine, but all those along the top of the stamp are distinctly separate, and one or two on the left-hand side do not touch the border of the stamp; the others touch the border too much, i.e., the border seems to cut part of them away. The corners have a sort of fleur-de-lys pattern, but they are not all alike. The central coil of the post-horn is too small, and does not encroach at all upon either the bell or the mouth-piece. There are about four dots on the coil, just at the top of it, and very different from the complete circle of dots in the genuine. There is a white stop after the letters KGL, but it is almost as near to the P of POST as it is to the L; at any rate, it does not nearly touch the L. And now I think that any amateur who allows himself to be taken in, after this extremely minute description of both genuine and forged, richly deserves to lose his money.