Preview of Stamps Catalogue: VOLUME 1

UNITED STATES LOCALS Swarts

Return To Catalogue - United States locals overview - Spaulding to Sullivan - Teese's to Zieber - United States

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ATTENTION: many of the local stamps of the United States are reprints or forgeries!

Swarts for U.S. Mail (New York)

1849 Zachary Taylor

Genuine stamps?

Left stamp is a forgery ("D" of "AND" almost below "T" of "SWARTS"), I'm not sure if the right stamp is genuine.

The colours issued are: black on green, lilac, red, lilac on blue, red on blue, black on grey and blue. I know that forgeries exist (I'm not sure if the above stamps are genuine). Bouton City Dispatch Post issued very similar stamps.

These are probably forgeries made by forger Scott; I've also seen them in the color black on green.

First type of forgery made by S.Allan Taylor (last image reduced size)

The forger S.Allan Taylor also produced forgeries, resembling the above Scott forgeries (black on green, black, red and blue). Taylor made another forgery, where the dots in the corners are missing and the head is much less convincing (black, black on blue, red, red on yellow):

Taylor second forgery, reduced sizes.

Block of four forgeries. Note the rounded shoulders.

1849 George Washington

With cancels.

The only colours issued are: red, lilac, red on blue and lilac on blue.

Reprint

Stamp in black; reprint or forgery? The status of the black stamps is not certain, they are engraved and very well executed. Some of them have a red "PAID" cancel.

Rather primitive forgery, I've also seen it in the color black.

Another forgery?

1849 Text "SWARTS FOR U.S. MAIL. ONE CENT PRE-PAID"

Genuine stamps

The most common colour is blue, though these stamps are known to exist in red and black. Though they are not very rare (except for the black one), deceptive forgeries exist abundantly.

Reprint - forgeries

A sheet with reprint 'counterfeits', note the constant flaws (scratches, defects) in the stamps. The flaws appear identical for each row, but there is a large blotch of ink in the right bottom corner of the last stamps of the second and third row. I've also seen the same reprint in red, where another pane of 15 stamps was printed at the bottom, but inverted with a very large space in between the two panes. I've seen genuine stamp containing 25 stamps, where the stamps are placed much closer to each other (some of them almost touch each other).

Second forgery (Taylor)

Reduced sizes

I know that Taylor (a famous forger) made forgeries of the above stamps. I think they can be recognized by the absence of the dots behind "SWARTS" and "MAIL". Also the "O" of "ONE" is too small. He made forgeries in blue, but also in the bogus colours: violet, red, red on yellow, black and green (and maybe other colours).

Third forgery

This forgery resembles very much the above Taylor forgery; "O" of "ONE" too narrow, but the dots behind "SWARTS" and "MAIL" have been added in this forgery.

Fourth forgery (Scott)

The forger Scott made forgeries of these stamps. They seem very deceptive to me and I don't know what are their distinguishing characteristics. Possible Scott forgeries:

Forgery or reprint

Another forgery

Various forgeries in bogus colors also exist (black on green, black on yellow, brown, red on green, yellow, etc.).

Bogus color(?): black on red.

Literature:

The Chatham SquarePost Office and Swarts City Dispatch Post, American Philatelic Society, 1941, 34 pages. This book shows the genuine stamps, cancels, forgeries and reprints. I haven't seen this book myself

Teese's to Zieber