Extremely Worn Plate - or possible forgery?
I am sorting Argentina San Martin issues and came across this little bugger that makes me want to post this for opinions. It's the stamp on right that has me baffled.
First thing that threw me off was color. More brownish... less red. Overall details seem less succinct. OK, so this is simply a later printing or where a severely worn plate was used, right? But it's lithography, not engraved printing. The perforations also stood out. The stamp at right measured Perf. 12, when these are typically more like Perf. 13.5. You can easily catch the difference.
OK, so I look closer. Here's the head comparisons. I'm looking at individual lines now. Seem comparable for the most part, but the variation of strong and less strong lines is not consistent. Shading of nose seems off (I would expect more on the stamp at right), and the hairline of the stamp on right seem to not follow the same pattern. The lines of the ear seem to differ, too. Same goes for the whites of the eyes... they kind of disappear in the stamp at right. Not enough to be convincing yet.
OK, so what's this on the collar? The one on the right seems quite different. It even almost looks like a date, unless it's just how the plate happened to wear. But where did the "1" come from?
Then there's the "PU" in "REPUBLICA". Looks like they are leaning against each other significantly more than on a normal stamp (left).
Any thoughts out there? I could not find evidence of forgeries on this issue.
Doug
First thing that threw me off was color. More brownish... less red. Overall details seem less succinct. OK, so this is simply a later printing or where a severely worn plate was used, right? But it's lithography, not engraved printing. The perforations also stood out. The stamp at right measured Perf. 12, when these are typically more like Perf. 13.5. You can easily catch the difference.
OK, so I look closer. Here's the head comparisons. I'm looking at individual lines now. Seem comparable for the most part, but the variation of strong and less strong lines is not consistent. Shading of nose seems off (I would expect more on the stamp at right), and the hairline of the stamp on right seem to not follow the same pattern. The lines of the ear seem to differ, too. Same goes for the whites of the eyes... they kind of disappear in the stamp at right. Not enough to be convincing yet.
OK, so what's this on the collar? The one on the right seems quite different. It even almost looks like a date, unless it's just how the plate happened to wear. But where did the "1" come from?
Then there's the "PU" in "REPUBLICA". Looks like they are leaning against each other significantly more than on a normal stamp (left).
Any thoughts out there? I could not find evidence of forgeries on this issue.
Doug
Comments
I can't find much, although I agree that there are differences between the two stamps. There are several printings of this stamp. Scott notes that there was a 1923 printing that used different ink and paper. Also, the stamps are found with different watermarks, and also perfed either 13.5 or 13.5 x 12.5.