Trouble Spots

How to tell the difference between
Scott #6 (London) or #7 (Richmond) and the New York counterfeit
by Patricia A. Kaufmann

Left to right: London Print, Richmond Print on London paper,
Richmond Print with white tie variety, and New York counterfeit.

The London and Richmond prints are commonly confused, although with a bit of experience, they are generally not that hard to tell from one another due to paper, gum and printing characteristics. The New York counterfeit is seen almost as frequently as the "real thing" and copies are offered and sold as genuine #6's almost every day on eBay to the non-specialist. They are also found in virtually every stamp bourse and are offered unknowingly by dealers whose specialty is not Confederates. Your best defense is knowing the differences yourself.

London Print: produced by Thomas De La Rue & Co. in London, England on thin white wove hard-surfaced paper. The image was engraved in relief on steel, electrotyped and flat-bed printed. Impressions are sharp and clear and the ink is a consistent color from light blue to blue. The gum is thin, even transparent colorless gum.

De La Rue shipped both the printing plates and a quantity of stamp paper. Consequently, there are Richmond prints that are very close to the same quality as the London prints. However, there are many that are quite clearly "local prints" , such as the second to the left example above, which has obviously filled in framelines most noticeable at left and at bottom, as well as filling in the fine lines of the hair and a rather "muddy" appearance to the entire stamp. Not all Richmond prints will have the filled in framelines, but if it does, then you can be assured it is not a London Print.

Richmond Print: printed by the Richmond firm of Archer & Daly from electrotype plates provided by De La Rue on white wove paper in two grades - the thin glazed paper from London shipped with the plates and an inferior coarse grade of paper with colorless thin gum of an inferior darker hue. The color of the successive printings ranges from pale blue to dark blue to dark cobalt. The impression are coarse with many plate (constant) and printing (variable) faults. One of the most collectible plate faults is the "white necktie" shown above. If the stamp you are examining has  any printing defects, darker gum, or shows uneven application, large skips, or heavy brush marks, it is a Richmond print.

New York Counterfeit: this commonly encountered forgery was printed from an electrotype plate by J. Walter Scott for use in the Scott albums in the early 1900's. The master die was photographically reproduced from a print from the ten-cent altered plate (subject of another treatise) and the value in the tablet changed from "TEN" back to "FIVE". The first thing that jumps out at me is always the odd cloudy greenish-blue aqua color, which is nothing like an genuine stamp (far right stamp above). There is NO genuine shade like this. The next most obvious and decisive difference between the counterfeit and the original is the shorter crossbars on the "F" and the "E" of "FIVE" in the value at the bottom. When you compare them to the genuine Richmond print to the left, you will notice that they are always significantly shorter than the originals. Other things to notice are the lack of detail in the eye (very little white area) and generally lack of clarity and definition. The outer frame line is also thicker than on the originals. There are some other minor differences, but those presented here are more than enough for you to correctly determined genuine from counterfeit.