Folks, I am feed up looking at fake Sc. #5´s on eBay. Maybe 1 in 100 is genuine. The rest are either outright fakes (namely Fournier, though valuable in itself) or cut down rouletted or perforated stamps to resemble the imperforated original.

The stamp had a 2 Centimes nominal value and was printed in a distinctive black on extremly dense paper. This is the first clue if the stamp is the genuine article: If a drop of water does not sink into the paper, it´s the imperforated issue. Water may take up to 24 hours to penetrate.

Cancellations: Mute three ring cancels, mute rural cancels, mute six-, eight- or nine bar cancels are ok. Also the small two ring (french type) and larger two ring (belgian type) cancels, often in use in prephilatelic times.

But many of the 303.300 stamps printed were used on printed matter and subsequently destroyed. So soon the rouletted issue replaced the imperforated variety in 1865. As the stamp was used up, it is virtually impossible that a large one ring (german type, introduced in 1872) or two ring (german type, introduced about 1882) cancels are on the stamp:

Margins: The imperforated stamps had fairly narrow margins, perhaps 1-2 mm. If they are as big as on the example shown, then you have a scissor cut Haarlem issue - they had ample margins, sometimes Jumbo margins.

All said above holds true for all the other imperforated issues except the 25 and  37 1/2 centimes stamps, which had distinctive colors (brown and green - later issues blue and bistre). If you see the large one ring or large two ring cancel, simply stay away!

All the best,

Lars Böttger

Member APS, USPCS, BDPh, DASV, ArGe Dt. Besetzung 1. Weltkrieg, Cércle Philatelique Echternach