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ALWIN NIESKE Forgeries

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Note: on my website many of the pictures can not be seen! They are of course present in the catalogue;
contact me if you want to purchase it.


Alwin Nieske elected himself as president of the 'Internationalen Philatelistenvereins Dresden', and issued the journal 'Union' on 1 January 1877 (source http://www.philatelistenverein-leipzig.de, his name is here spelt Albin instead of Alwin). On 17 April 1880 Nieske was removed from this association, since he had ordered forgeries to be made. Apparenlty, the firm Salm in Plauen had indeed prepared forgeries for Nieske (source 'Philatelic Forgers, their Lives and Works' by V.E.Tyler). According to this source the following forgeries were thus made:

Clover leaf stationary of Hannover
Brunswick horses
10 Ngr envelope stamps of Saxony
3 pf red Saxony stamps (these were sold by Nieske, but might not have been made by the Salm firm).

Bogus stamps that Nieske might have been involved in:


Bogus stamp of Jhind

These bogus stamps were probably issued by a Mr. Moquette of Dutch East Indies (see Filatelie informatief September 1983 p 7060-10, in dutch). More values and values in different colours exist. Moquette also made a bogus issue for Johore. All these stamps were also sold by the stamp dealer Friedl in Vienna. Moquette also made several bogus overprints on genuine stamps of Dutch East Indies. Two of the images were found at http://home.att.net/~rickscott/Unidentified/Unk376.html and http://home.att.net/~rickscott/Unidentified/Unk377.html.
The Stamp Almanac (Almanach du Timbre-Poste) by J.B.Moens of 1886 shows an image of the red bogus stamp shown above (16 March) with the following text: "MM Senf frères se décident à parler et nous disent enfin où le type ci-contre est en usage. Cela ne leur procure aucune difficulté, vu qu'ils ont été les seuls à vendre ces timbres." (Translation: The Senf brothers decide to talk and finally tell us where the stamp shown here is used. This doesn't give them any problems, since they are the only ones selling these stamps.). The 1/2 Rupee stamp is shown in the same book on 12 April, while making fun of the Illustrirtes Briefmarken Journal (issued by the Senf brothers).
On the other hand, Moens in 'Le Timbre Poste' no 182, page 11 (1878) shows an image of the above stamp (elephant desing) with the message that Moens obtained this stamp from A.Nieske, implying that Nieske might have been involved.

Furthermore, in 'Le Timbre Poste' no 182, page 13 (1878) the name Alwin Nieske is mentioned again when the Monterey bogus issue was first described (it was not known then that these stamps were bogus).

Unfortunately, I have not been able to find any forgeries made by Nieske. If anyone has more information, please contact me!


Copyright by Evert Klaseboer