If only! A Wonderful Fake of the 1939 10/- Great Constantia
We all have questions about stamps and postal history. Sometimes when the reference books fail you the only way to get an answer is to talk to someone more expert than you. The fear in such situations is that you will reveal the depth of your lack of knowledge. It takes some courage to ask for advice from those who know more than you. My ignorance was recently exposed when I tried to help answer a question sent to me.
In early May 2025 SACS was contacted by Bryan Jackson, a Southern Africa collector who is not a member of our society. He was stumped by something he had bought on eBay. Like most stamp collectors Bryan needed advice from someone more expert than himself. His question came to me. As Webmaster, I am more postal historian than stamp nerd. The scan Bryan sent to me was new to me, a very attractive and curious tete beche block of four 1939 10/- stamps. I had not seen their like before. In fact, no-one had. This fake was not listed anywhere – which was why Bryan was asking SACS for some help .
I emailed two senior SACS members saying “This just came in. I do not know what to make of it. It has the potential to be very nice. new discovery”. Big mistake. I had suspended disbelief and made the mistake of being open to its possible potential.
When SACS receives requests for advice from collectors we try to provide all who are not time-wasters with a professional and qualified response. Fortunately Bryan was not asking us how much his grandfather’s stamp album was worth! My reaction to seeing his first scan below was currousity. Whatever he had, it looked very interesting
“I have a block of stamps about which I cannot find any information”, he wrote. “They are not mentioned in my Stanley Gibbons Part 1. 1991. The scan does not show the perforations but they are good and complete (P14). The watermark is correct. If the block is interesting then I can send you a better scan. I would appreciate some help”.
The missing perforations were due to Bryan’s unfamiliarity with his scanner. I asked him to send me a better scan that showed the missing perfs. True to his word a new scan followed shortly after. Not wanting egg on my face I took a quck look at the block before deciding it warranted getting an expert member involved. Bryan was correct. A tete beche variety of the 1939 10/- was not mentioned in the Stanley Gibbons catalogue nor in the SACC (South African Colour Catalogue). So, what was this? A new discovery or something more sinister? As a new discovery it could be worth a small fortune.
Bryan had found the stamp in an accumulation of 150 South African stamps that he had bought on eBay for £25. “I buy this sort of thing so that I have examples of colour variations, postmarks and (in this case) oddities. I would sell if something was worth a lot of money but profit is not my aim. I am happy with my purchase even if no-one else is interested. I’m 70 and the older I get the less money I need. I spend my life walking in the countryside with my dog enjoying and photographing nature. I live in Cheltenham, Glos, a wonderful base for these activities.” Bryan sounds like a man after my own heart.
Bryan has a general Commonwealth stamp collection but over the past few years has concentrated more on Cape of Good Hope, Natal, Transvaal and Orange Free State. He says he has “a decent collection of early Rhodesia. The region has a lot of British history, I’ve been there twice for cycling tours. The area is just breathtakingly beautiful, landscape and wildlife. I think Wilbur Smith novels piqued my interest in the region.”
Despite being unable to decipher the postmark what I saw was enough for me to enlist the help of two more experienced member of SACS, our President Tony Howgrave-Graham and Simon Peetoom of Africa Stamps. In such matters it is always useful to get two opinions rather than one. I got quite strongly worded answers from both!
Tony is a formidable South African stamp specialist. “This just came in,” I wrote. “I do not know what to make of it. It has the potential to be very nice new discovery. Sorry to waste your time but if you think this is interesting and worthy please reply to him and CC me. In any event, this will probably be worth a write-up.” It did not take long for Tony to reply. He did not mince his words. “Its an interesting fake, I’m afraid”, he wrote.
“It doesn’t exist, nor does the stamp with an inverted watermark so it must be two vertical pairs joined. This can be done very cleverly though generally an uneven line can be seen if you hold it against some light. The watermark is another question. If it’s genuinely upright on all 4 stamps (ie inverted on 2) you’ve got me stumped. Very hard to fake. Better scans of back & front might help. The postmark is easy to fake and may cover a sin or two! I can’t believe it’s genuine. There really isn’t any mechanism by which it could exist. Sorry to disappoint but if you are convinced its genuine you will need to send it to an Expert Committee though I fear you will lose the costs involved”.
To which Bryan replied, “Thanks for the nice and helpful reply. I have not checked the watermark as a whole on all 4 stamps together because I didn’t realise stamps could be joined. I shall wet them and have a better look later today. I shall let you know either way, but for now I consider myself more educated ~ and that has to be a positive result.”
I warned Bryan to be careful when wetting the block as this might have the effect of separating the join or making it more visible and suggested that he try other less obtrusive ways to determine the watermark. Although this item is a fake, the irony is that its value is linked to it being a complete clever fake. Someone will want it in their collection ‘as is’.
Unsurprisingly I received Simon’s reply last. He was busy preparing his dealer stock for EuroPhilEx in a few days time. Surprisingly he also used the phrase “philtelic fun” as Tony had done. This, he said, is “a bit of philatelic fun, no more no less. The creation of tete-beche stamps was to aid the production of booklet panes, so printing plates would have to be made up, a process that required time, effort and cost. As there is no requirement for a ten-shilling value in a booklet, the Government printer would not have created such a thing”.
“As webmaster, you’ll receive all manner of fantastical or stupid submissions of “here is a new discovery” so you should turn your BS sensitivity meter up a bit. This item falls into the totally implausible section of “rare” items. Some will be more plausible and once every twenty or thirty years, something will be a new discovery! I’ve made one new South Africa discovery in my career that went into SG and I’m looking at South Africa stamps all of the time, so you can see how seldom they are made!”
So, there we have it. A fake but an interesting one with an undetermined value. If you would like to comment on this article and the block in question, please email the Webmaster and we will add your tuppence or Rand’s worth to this artcle. Thanks.
