By Gerhard Lang-Valchs.

Introduction

The case presented in this article is without any doubt very particular, I think it is even unique in postal and philatelic history, not only of Spain, but world-wide. Quite a lot of fantasy stamps were produced since stamp illustrations began to appear in philatelic reviews and catalogues in the middle of the 1860’s. The so-called Pommare-stamp is one the first of this kind of products made in Europe. But forging an unknown stamp seems to be a contradiction in terms.

When I started some years ago my research on the postal system in the so-called central (Valencia/Maestrazgo) region during the last Carlist War in Spain (1872-1876) and the stamps issued by the insurgency, I was astonished about the amount of strange information and contradictions existing. The different findings originated about half a dozen of articles published in philatelic and scientific magazines, written in order to join the dots. (1)

One of the discoveries made was, that the one and only Valencia-stamp, issued by the insurgents during the last Carlist War (1872-1876), is possibly world-wide the only stamp whose existence is clearly documented, but whose real and exact design is, however, unknown, although catalogues, stamp dealers and even forgery experts use to tell another story. The most distressing in this context is the lack of contrastable and critically revised evidence presented, the lack of a rigorous research, that takes in account all available documents on the case.

The problem

Approaching the problem from the collector’s view, we can reduce it to the question, whether this stamp, that seems to exist in two types, shows, in what is called type I, 31 or 32 background-lines at the left of the bust in the central medallion or 32 or 30 at the right side. During more than 50 years after the issuing, the 31-line stamp was taken as genuine. The following 50 years the 32-line-stamp was presented as the authentic. No critical reasoning justified this strange shift of opinion. In an article, probably disregarded because published in a small Dutch philatelic magazine, the author brought up the painful subject (2). Vinkenborg presents a list of philatelic experts and authors who take different samples of our stamp for good and genuine, finishing with the undoubtedly logical conclusion, that only one of the two versions can really be the genuine.

The documental base

Two are the sources the argumentation refers to, in order to establish the basic dates about the 1874 Valencia issue: the articles published between December 1874 and 1876 in Jean-Baptiste Moens’ review Le Timbre Poste [LTP] and the transcription of an interview the Spanish lawyer and stamp collector Francisco Carreras Candi made with the lithographer of the Valencia stamp (3). As far as I could see, no other contemporaneous documents were consulted.

The first note of the existence of a stamp issued by the Carlist War insurgency of the Valencia region (Maestrazgo) appears in their war bulletin in May 1874 (4). But there is no illustration or description of the stamp included. The respective instructions for its postal use, however, do not let space for any doubt about the real existence of this adhesive stamp.

Outside the limits of the area dominated by the insurgents this stamp is first mentioned in the British magazine The Philatelist in November 1874. The information proceeded from a Spanish correspondent who had sent one or various samples of the stamp to the redactional team, what allowed to order the illustration which accompanied the information given in the article (5).

The short and not very explicit description speaks of a very ugly design that deformed the physiognomy of the represented pretender of the throne: “The portrait is that of a fat, bull-necked man.”

The following month, December 1874, the Belgian magazine LTP presents the Valencia-issue as well and speaks of two types with the same value. But the illustration that should give us an idea of the design, shows only one of the stamps (supposedly type II, because of the position of the banderol) with a quite different design of the effigy of the pretender, we see on the “British” illustration (6).

Six main criteria distinguish the two types, explains the magazine (7). The three most important are the number of background lines of the central oval and the lines above the head of the pretender. Their number is 31/29 (left and right) for type I and 34/32 for type II. The lines above the head are three and only two for type II. In type I the upper banderol touches the frame, whereas type II shows a minimal distance. And finally, another factor, not included in this description pattern, distinguishes both stamps: their colour: pale wine rose and dull rose (8).

The following number of the LTP serves a major surprise, accepted by the philatelic community apparently as a normal and common thing. In a short comment without any further explanation the review asserts, that the Valencia stamp is a twin-stamp. The two different types, presented and described a month before, are printed in alternative rows of each sheet in vertical opposition (9).

The existence of two different types like the ones described by the review could be explained in two ways. First: by the existence of two different original stones and plates, second: by the existence of one original plate with the two different types.

The just made considerations, although mere theory, and the lack of comments by Moens about a possible retouching of one of the samples show that he really had described two different stamps. The two different shades of colour of the samples, never called into question by anyone or corrected by the Belgian, reaffirm the independent origin of both stamps. So, what he described was by no means a pair of samples of the alleged “twin-stamp”. If both samples proceed from the same sheet, both must show the same die. Thus, Moens described or two forgeries or one forgery and one genuine stamp.

The strange existence of a “twin-stamp”, a singularity in Spanish postal and philatelic history, did not deserve any further explanation nor documentation in later publications. The first appearance of an image of this strange phenomenon only takes place more than 15 years later! Nobody questioned (the) supposed fact, although Moens, as well as other dealers, offered the supposed twin-samples, in a strange and obvious contradiction, as individual stamps in their different, previously described colours (10).

The second Moens-issue

In the month of June of 1875 Moens publishes another article announcing a new, remade version of the 1874 Valencia issue, because the first had allegedly run out of stock (11). The detailed description of the samples, following the same pattern applied to the first issue, allows in this case to identify those stamps.

The several shades of red of type I mentioned, really exist. Both are, however forgeries (12). The only question not resolved is summarised in the title of the just referred article: Are we dealing with one postal or one or two philatelic forgeries?

The Spud Papers

The so-called Spud Papers, a compilation of comments and short articles about forgeries written by the British stamp experts W. Dudley Atlee, Edward Loines Pemberton and the reverend Robert Brisco Earee between 1871 and 1881 and later published all together in a book, also list some Carlist stamps, our Valencia-stamp inclusive.

The article we refer to, dates from April 1876. Before starting with the description the author makes an acid comment on the hideous and ugly portrait of the pretender on both types. Then he speaks of both stamps, describes their main differences, classifying them as type I and II as nowadays catalogues use to do, taking in account the different position of the banderols. He comments that it is not clear, “which type is the earlier” and that the forgers have imitated only the type II-item (13). The author clearly describes two different stamps, not retouched copies one from another.

The short description of the supposed type I-original is a handicap when trying to identify the real existing sample. The reported very faint rays round the medallion, the very close shading lines of the background and the scrolls touching the frame at top and bottom point to the “philatelic forgery” presented by Moens in May 1875, but we can’t be sure (see figure 6).

The description of the type II-original, does not allow a clear identification either. The mentioned 77 radials touching the outer frame and the two clear lines between the fleur-de-lis and the end of the scrolls above and below them seem to be signs enough to assure, that we know this stamp (see figure 7) (14). No other known sample shows those particularities. But the number of background-lines at the right side of the bust does not coincide. The very short and on many samples hardly visible last line could be the explanation for the difference, but we can’t be sure.

The third sample described, however, is an imitation of type II. 33 and 32 background-lines, 88 radials, a semi-circular blank at the jaw and only one clear line between the fleur-de-lis and the end of the scrolls define this sample. The upwards continued line separating the value ciphers points in this case to the nose. The following photo identifies that stamp.

A British and a French Study

In 1879 the Royal Philatelic Society of London [PhS] presents a study about the stamps of Spain issued until 1878 (15). This work includes a very detailed paragraph about the stamps of the Carlist War with special attention to the Valencia-issue.

Four types are described and analysed.

The counting of the background-lines was realized only at the left side of the bust. In compensation we get a great number of further details. The study also remarks, that a thin line separates the stamp on the sheet, where they are printed one above the other in horizontal rows, a skipped fact The Philatelist had mentioned as well.

Nor a photo nor an illustration is presented, but there can’t be any doubt, that the authors of the study disposed of type I and type II “twin-samples”. More important and significant is, that the obvious initial aim to find out, which of those samples is the genuine, was not achieved. All remains in the detailed description of the four samples.

In its 1880 bulletin the Parisian Société Française de Timbrologie [SFT] lists as well the issues of the Spanish Carlist War (16). We find in the listing the four already known types without any new detail added. But the SFT presents even a fifth, new type with 31/30 background lines. The scarce description does not allow a reliable identification and ends with a question mark: Is it a stamp or an essay? No further opinion or comment on the authenticity of the different types is passed on. Only a small chart showing the relationship of samples and colours is added.

So, this French study does not really elucidate anything, but only contributes to increase the uncertainty and confusion about the real nature of the Valencia stamp.

The Album Weeds

The description of the (supposed) type I original is too scarce to serve for more than distinguishing it from a type II-sample. The (supposed) type II original, however, deserves a relatively detailed description, due to the fact, that, as Earee explains, only this type has been forged (17).

He describes a 34/32 background-lines-sample with 72 rays counted at their origin at the central medallion. Then he counts the free radiation lines (rays) between the upper or lower scroll and the fleur-de-lis at the left and at the right (2/1/2/3, counted clockwise starting at the upper left). If the line that divides the figures of the fraction ½ were continued upwards, it would clearly touch the nose.

This particular descriptive approach does not allow a direct comparison with the previously presented. It does not match either with any of the already treated nor with the samples currently taken as genuine. Taking in account that no separation line around the (supposedly original) stamps is mentioned, it is clear, that it describes a sample, different from the one The Philatelist and the LPhS had analysed.

The third Valencia-stamp generation

Probably in the context of the purchase of the original stone and the wrongly called reprints of the first Carlist stamp of the Basque Country by J.-B. Moens, his review gets back in 1886 in various articles to the Carlist stamp subject (18). I won’t insist in the repeated, partly reorganized and slightly (mis-) corrected information about the origins of the two different stamp issues, but I’d like to focus the attention on the now presented different and new illustrations.

The “new” design does not match at all with any of the four descriptions given by himself. And I can even present a real existing forgery of this redesigned fantasy. The same illustration reappears later in various European catalogues (19).

When Jean-Baptiste Moens published in 1891 his book about the Spanish stamps issued until 1890, he included the information and the illustrations we presented above (20). But his 1892 catalogue presents as well, included in his Atlas de planches, a completely new version of what has been pretended to be the Valencia-stamp up to that date.

No explanation is given about this change, that in contradiction to the illustrations of part III of the catalogue, keeps representing the old largely known samples with his old announcements and descriptions. The stamps Moens’ review had presented in 1875 as a second, remade issue, are equally offered in the 1892 catalogue’s inner pages (21). Very bizarre.

The lithographer’s testimony

The lithographer of the Valencia-issue, Juan Vilás, worked after the end of the uprising and after his reinsertion as a lithographer in Barcelona. The Spanish lawyer and stamp collector Francisco Carreras Candi, interviewed him more than 20 years after the end of the war, and reproduced part of the questions and answers in a large, just shortly referred article.

The main purpose of this interview was not to clarify the real nature of our Valencia “twin-stamp”. No doubts were cast on its existence or design. The subtitle of the article announces, what his author is about to present: The postal stamp of the Centre region (= Valencia/Maestrazgo) in its two types (22). He reproduces what Moens and later Friederich, based on Moens as well, had written about the case (23).

The interviewer is, in reality, interested in the origins of another stamp, supposedly issued during the last days of the civil war. So he did not really ask Vilás about the first issue, but only about the completely different one he was eager to get information about, the ¾ cuartos Valencia (fantasy) stamp (24).

Nevertheless, the reported answers or details given by Vilás, reproduced by Carreras in his article, do not confirm his conviction. Vilas did speak all the time of one stamp he had engraved, only once he mentioned two. Following the Carreas Candi transcription, he referred to “the stamp made by me”, “the well-known Carlist Valencia stamp” or “the preparation of the postal stamp”, but except for one time, ever in singular (25). He even reveals that, not satisfied with the result of the first issue, he had prepared “two [new] stamps in order to replace in 1875, the one that had been in circulation since the year before…“ (26); before the project could be finished, the liberal troops conquered the last Carlist bastion in the region and Vilás had to hide the stones and never did or could recover them. The engraver speaks furthermore of only one die.

Have we reasons to question the reliability of the engravers tale? I can’t see, why he should have been telling lies or hiding relevant information about his stamp(s) more than 20 years after the end of the Carlist uprising. Even if he would have been implicated in some sort of forging action with his (in this case allegedly lost) original printing stones, he would have told another story in order to give (more) credibility to the existence of two different issues or of a “twin” instead of a single stamp. So, what the transcribed text shows, might be an uneasy truth. It has to be admitted, however, that we have to take in account, that the transcription of the engraver’s answers was not as accurate as desirable.

Other opinions

As far as I could see, there did not exist a real controversy and discussion about the design of the authentic Carlist Valencia stamp(s). No other differing opinions can be found in the contemporary philatelic publications. There are, however, some different illustrations other renowned catalogues presented. But only if we really would accept the mere fact of their publication with a different design, but without any (critical) comment, as the expression of a different opinion, we could, indeed, speak of a dissent.

Final résumé and considerations

The samples described by Moens (1874) were not “twins”, at least one was a fake. The supposed second issue’s “twins” (1875) are clearly forgeries. None of the later presented samples (1892/3) matches with his own descriptions.

The first two samples the LPhS-catalogue describes are not the same Moens had seen and described. The description remarks a thin line separating the stamps, both have the same colour.

None of the other descriptions is explicit enough to contribute distinctive details for an identification of the possibly genuine sample.

Nor the catalogues, nor the philatelic magazines or handbooks, nor (particular) studies of expert collectors were able to present in the first 15 years after the unquestionable issuing of the Carlist stamp of Valencia an illustration with a design, that could be accepted as valid. Nobody presented a hand-drawn illustration or a photo of a “twin-stamp”-sample (27).

NOTES:

1- L’étrange amour de M. Moens pour les timbres-poste carlistes, Le Philatéliste Belge, abril 2017; The Carlist Fakes, Moens and Torres, Fakes, Forgeries, Experts, nº 19, May 2017, p. 69-84. El sello carlista de Valencia y la confusión de los catálogos, Eco Filatélico y Numismático, mayo 2017, p. 30-32; Los grabadores de Jean-Baptiste Moens, Eco Filatélico y Numismático, sept/oct 2017, p. 30-32; Los sellos carlistas de la región del Norte y sus falsos de Plácido Ramón de Torres, Exposition catalogue EXFILNA 2017, p. 30-40; El correo carlista en el Maestrazgo [CCM], Millars, Espai i Història, review of the university of Castellón,XLIII 2017/2, p. 245-268.

2- Hans Vinkenborg: De Carlistenzegel uit Valencia, Iberia 100, p. 50-57.

3- Francisco Carreras Candi [FCC]: Estudios postales I. Disquisiciones filatélicas y postales, Barcelona 1908, p. 61-67.

4- El Volante de la Guerra, Archivo Histórico Nacional, fondo Borbón Parma, Diversos 116, exp. 2, nº 221.

5- The Philatelist used, as well as most British and European reviews and catalogues in general, Torres- illustrations. So this illustration is most probably the work of the Spaniard, too.

6- A closer look to it reveals, that we are looking at a known and described Torres illustration and forgery. See GLV: The Carlist fakes, p. 79.

7- LTP, n. 144, p. 89-90.

8- Ididem: “Ces timbres sont imprimés en rouge vineux pâle et [rouge] foncé sur papier blanc uni et ne sont point dentelés.” (Underlining by the author.)

9- LTP, n. 145, p. 5.

10- JBM: Catalogue prix-courant… [CPC], Bruxelles 1877, p. 84, #519 (rose), #520 (rouge), #521 (“les deux variétés se tenant”) and even CPC, Bruxelles 1892, p. 150, #840-842 only with changed colours (rose and rose foncé).

11- TP, n. 150, p. 41-42.

12- GLV: ¿Falso filatélico o falso postal?, Eco Filatélico y Numismático, # 1248, Febr. 2016, p. 24-25. The accidental printing defect of the value (4/2 instead of of ½) was later used to print whole sheets with this error. See TP, n. 189, p. 68 and n. 191, p.88.

13- Robert Brisco Earee: The Spud Papers, An Illustrated Descriptive Catalogue of Early Philatelic Forgeries, 1952, LV (Spain. Carlist Insurrection), p. 132-134. The Philatelist, vol. X, (1876), p. 56-57.

14- Ibidem. The indication “If the little oblique line which divides the figures of the fraction ½ were continued upwards, it would pass considerably to the right of the face” is a further proof.

15- Royal Philatelic Society: Catalogue of Postage Stamps, stamped envelopes and postcards: Spain and Colonies, London 1879, p. 27-31.

16- Bulletin de la Société Française de Timbrologie, Bruxelles 1870, p. 251-252. This bulletin edition was edited by J.-B. Moens who lend his Torres-clichés to illustrate the whole work, not only for the Carlist stamps.

17- Robert B. Earee: Album Weeds, St. Gibbons 1882, p. 422.

18- TP #290 and 293.

19- Collin (1885), Bélin (1890), Barbarin (1891), Vives (1897), Gálvez (1898). Instead of 34 and 32 background lines, the alegdely “new” type II-sample shows 29 and 26.

20- J.-B. Moens [JBM]: Les timbres…. , p. 150; 1433, 1434.

21- TP #150 (June 1875), p. 48; JBM, CPC, Bruxelles 1877, p. 84, #522-524; JBM, CPC, Bruxelles 1892, p. 150, #843-846.

22- FCC: Estudios, p. 61, “El sello de Correos del Centro en sus dos variedades…”.

23- Rudoph Friederich [RF]: Die Postwertzeichen Spaniens und seiner Kolonien [PWZ], 2^nd edition, Berlin 1894. In the 2^nd edition of his book Friederich presents the first photos of the Carlist stamps, but no twin-stamp.

24- Even Moens does not give any credibility to the real existence of any genuine sample of this stamp. See as well: www.filateliadigital.com: María José Sempere: A vueltas con el 3 cuartos carlista and El 3 cuartos carlista de Cataluña.

25- Because of its different linguistic structure the Spanish original is even more explicit tan the English translation: “el sello grabado por mí”, del “tan conocido sello carlista de Valencia”, de la “confección del sello de correos” (Italic bold by the author).

26- Ibidem, pág. 65. … “dos sellos de correos, para reemplazar, en el año 1875, al que circulaba desde el año anterior”.

27- The first in showing a foto of the Valencia stamp is Friederich in 1894. He reports what Moens published in his Atlas de planches of 1892 (see next paragraph), but he does not present a twin-stamp sample either. RF, PWZ: Tafel (sheet) X.