|
This article was originally published
in the Cyprus Circular Post, Journal of the Cyprus Study Circle.
It has recently been established that the stamps
were not in fact fraudulently tampered with, but were in fact SAMPLES
produced by Waterlow & Co. to suggest what could be done for the
next printing.
|
|
 
I have a pair of covers, one is fully
illustrated, and the other illustrated by showing only the stamps and
the postmark. It is of course the stamps that are of interest in this
case.
If you look at the originals (select the thumbnail
pictures) you will see that the head tablets of the stamps have been
carefully removed and moved around between the stamps applied to the
covers.
The earliest shows a green head tablet on a 2 piastre
stamp with a blue head tablet on the joined pair. The 9 piastre stamp
carries a red head tablet from one of the 2 piastre stamps above.
In the later cover the head tablets have been swapped
between the 6 piastre and 1 piastre stamps.
James H. Mosey was the Principle of Kings School, and
presumable a stamp collector, but who was his very clever fellow
collector, or was he just a clever fraudster.?
Both covers are to the same address, the earliest is
dated 27 MAY 48 and the later 20 AUG 48 the earlier is hand written and
the later typed. There is no senders name and address. ( I wonder
why?)
I have reason to believe there may well have been
others similarly treated. It would be interesting to try and establish
how many.
The quality of the work in removing the head tablets
and moving them around between stamps is of a very high standard, with
great care being taken to use the white band around the head tablet to
mask any minor imperfections.
Careful examination suggests that the perpetrator
probably made a punch and die to remove the head tablets, and used only
the gum on the back of the tablet when inserting onto a cover. If the
work was done by any other means it would have been almost impossible to
have achieved the degree of interchangability, and tamper free
appearance.
It is a surprise that covers of this nature got
through the postal system without being picked up, since in effect they
are fraudulent and should have been marked postage due, tampering with
the Kings Head was after all an offence.
The fact they got through without being picked out by
vigilant postal staff is a tribute to the quality of the work of the
perpetrator, I for one would like to know how it was actually done, and
who did it.
|