Tracing a Spanish Forger’s Footprints.
By Gerhard Lang-Valchs.
About the previous research
When I started some years ago my research on the little known Spanish stamp dealer and forger Plácido Ramón de Torres (1847-1910) I could not imagine I would discover the activities the most prolific stamp illustrator world-wide who was probably at a time one of the most prolific stamp forgers. Personalities like the Belgian Jean-Baptiste Moens or the American J. W. Scott were for me little more than mere names of stamp dealers and editors. I only knew the early stamps of Spain, my favourite collecting area, and not even those of my home country. And now I’m here writing an article about the CSA-stamps.
I had to discover a lot of things: That “my forger” learned the office of a lithographer in Italy, where he started in the early 1860’s his career as an engraver for stamp illustrations, promoted by the Florentine stamp dealer Elia Carlo Usigli. This all-rounder and multi-talent built up in the first days of philatelic literature a Europe-wide monopole for stamp illustrations, that Torres continued later on his own. After delivering their clients they used the lithographic stones to make “private copies” converted into forgeries when sold and distributed in their stamp packages.
When Torres left Italy in 1874/75, he rebuilt his business in Barcelona. In 1879 he published the first really modern stamp album, that was at a time a world-catalogue.(1) It contained the majority of his illustrations made up to that date, more than 1200, and can be considered as a “handbook for detecting [Torres] fakes and forgeries”. (2)
Being fixed on the European catalogues and magazine, it took me years until I paged for the first time through an American catalogue. The images of this Scott-catalogue were different from those of the European catalogues and seemed to be of little interest for my research. But when I discovered in the context of another research, that the American Journal of Philately had used some Torres-illustrations, I had to refocus my attention. The retaken research revealed that at least some early American catalogues like Scott had as well profusely used Torres illustrations.(3)) So, the existence of Torres forgeries of the CSA-stamps, in a principle a weird hypothesis or wishful thinking, turned out to be a reality I can demonstrate and document with allocatable proofs and evidence.
The Moens/Torres implication
What has Moens to do with Torres? In order to produce the lithographic sheets of his first illustrated catalogue, Moens had worked together with two experienced, but at that time unemployed Brussels engravers.(4) He obviously got not the right to use those illustrations for further publications. But he got a cheaper offer for the illustrations of the current recently issued stamps he described and advertised in his magazine. The Florentine stamp dealer E.C. Usigli, at that time still patron of the young Torres, offered all over Europe the copies his Spanish lithographic talent was producing.
So, the following Moens catalogues and his philatelic magazine used the illustrations of the Spaniard. Exactly the same images can be found in nearly all European catalogues like Maury, Roussin, Gray and Smith, all clients of Usigli. But they used to appear first in the most read philatelic magazines: Le Timbre Poste and the British Stamp Collectors Magazine. As the identity of the common engraver was unknown, the editors were taken for the forger when, later in the 20th century, some of those illustrations were discovered and described as fakes or forgeries.
Some observations about the procedure
My assertion is, that some of the real existing CSA-forgeries, made by until now unknown forgers or attributed e.g. to Allan Taylor are the produce of Torres. The procedure used to prove this hypothesis, applied in other previous cases, should be shortly explained, before we start the analysis. We’ll first compare the genuine stamp with the correspondent Moens-Torres illustration and describe the most important differences between them. The presence of all detected differences at the illustrations as well as on the supposed Torres forgeries is a first strong hint for the trueness of our conviction. But this is, of course, not yet sufficient. We are obliged to have a closer look at our samples in order to find identical treats, patterns or particularities, only existing on the not genuine, in order to confirm their close relationship.
A look at minor common details like broken lines, inexistent in the genuine sample, but visible on the illustration as well as on the forgery can give us the certainty that we are not treating with two different although very close samples, but that we look at identical copies, although there may exist some minor differences and defects, due to the printing procedure.
In our analysis we are treating with copies taken from lithographic stones. A coincidence in the details we will describe and the concurrent lack of differences between them and the originals is impossible to obtain in a handmade copy of an original stamp or an illustration. A hand-made copy would have produced on the new lithographic stone inevitably more or less clearly visible differences. As we can exclude the use of photographic techniques, which were not yet applied to make stamp reproductions in those years, there was no other way to produce to copies.
The General issues
From the 11 existing stamps of the Confederate General Issue, 12 including the non-issued Calhoun-stamp, nine illustrations can be found in the above mentioned Torres Álbum.(5) Three of them had been previously published in the 1864 Moens Catalogue illustré… (6)
They were, however, made by two known Brussels engravers and are clearly different from all later imitations. The same illustrations, easy to distinguish, can only be found a second time in the English translation of the referred Moens catalogue and on some British copies that indicate their origin.
Before we find the very different Torres illustrations of those stamps reproduced in his own catalogue (1879) and on the lithographic sheets of the 1877 Moens catalogue, they had been already published e.g. in the 1870 French Maury and the 1876 Roussin catalogue, a fact that certainly demonstrates, that Moens hardly can be the author of those identical illustrations and their correspondent forgeries.
The Torres forgeries
We’ll first present the Torres forgeries that have already been discovered and described. Their author was up to date unknown, although some publications attributed the fakes to other authors as Moens or Taylor.
The first of the stamps forged by Torres, discovered and described by Richard Frajola, is the 10 cent Thomas Jefferson.(7) The horizontal background-lines of the central oval replace the matrix of little white dots of the original design and can be found in the Upham forgery as well. In the genuine the “A” of “STATES” is without its bar, the “F” of “OF” has not the same height as the “O” (its foot is on a higher level). The white space between the lower label and inner frame does not reach the left outer frame line. All those are features that no copy tried or achieved to imitate.
The following differences with the genuine are limited only to the Torres-fake and illustration. The design of the face and the whole bust, clearly different from the genuine, is the same. The strands of the hair, the shading lines of the face, the pattern of the jacket and the lines of the collar do not show any relevant difference.
At the corners of the lower label, short oblique lines touch the inner frame. The lettering shows only coinciding features, being the “S” and “G” of “POSTAGE” and the final “S” of “STATES” particularly characteristic because of the seemingly flattened shape of their upper part.
This prepared, but never issued stamp did not escape the attention of the forger(s). The very faint colours and design of most authentic samples make it difficult to distinguish the real treats of the original.
The two samples depicted together are both real existing forgeries, very close one to the other. They, however, do not imitate the particularity of the second circle surrounding the central disk. They show two entire circles, whereas the originals present two semi-circles that exceed the outer frame and touch the upper and lower label just in the middle. The number of background lines (43 at the left, 48 at the right) in the left forgery and 46 and 51 in the other make clear, that they are different fakes. A retouching or re-engraving is the reason for those and other detectable differences hiding their common origin.(8)
The Torres illustration, however, shows an identical number of background lines as the left fake-sample. The most eye-catching is the little dot below the parting of the hair. The shading lines of the collar, nose, forehead and the strands of the hair are different in their details from the other fake-sample. The outer circle is broken just at the top, the frame line is broken near the lower right adornment. The white mark on the jacket just above the “C” of “CENT” is another coinciding feature. Such a lot of details and no significant differences let no other choice than to speak of identical copies.
Identical copies are as well the left forgery of figure 9 and the Stanley Gibbons-illustration. Both coincide in their number of background-lines as well as in all other features that are differences between the two fakes.
In none of the here presented cases the main coincident traits of the forged sample and the Torres-illustration are as obvious as in the case of the Jefferson Davis stamp. The only illustration of this stamp, above depicted, in an European revue or catalogue prior to the 1879 Torres album dates from the 1864.(9) It can be found in the Moens Catalogue illustré and is clearly different from the Torres illustration and forgery. Those facts let hardly any doubt about its creator.
The defects of the sample, fine vertical “lines” on the face, probably produced by a careless handling of the original stone, are clearly visible and recognizable because of their very particular “pattern”. What unfortunately happens is, that the reproduction of the illustration in the Álbum is really bad and will probably not allow the readers to verify in its photographic reproduction in the journal, what is important and what we can appreciate only with the help of a magnifying glass on the album page. So we take our illustration from the Stanley Gibbons catalogue, because of its much better reproduction quality.(10)
The particular physiognomy of Jefferson with his sunken right cheek gives him a peaking aspect. None of the background-lines touches the surrounding circle. We count 45 background-lines at the left and 52 at the right of the bust. The circle around the central disk is broken+ at the right, just in the middle. The letters of the inscription are identical in their form and disposition in the frame.
The Fantasy Stamps
The Torres Álbum only depicts the General Issues. For the other stamps we present, we have to draw on the 1877 Moens catalogue, taking in account that the Belgian was Torres’ first and most loyal customer.(11)
Torres probably forged two of the Confederate Fantasy Stamps. We are not able at this moment to assure and demonstrate his authorship of the first candidate: the Blockade Postage stamp. The suspicion is however very strong. It is based on a particularity of his proceedings: his “fun-stamps” or jokes he used to play with his clients. The “writing error” “POST_GE”, omitting the “A”, is a strong indicator for this kind of jokes, recently documented for a lot of different types of jokes.(12) The third figure below shows a real existing Torres forgery made with the stone of the correspondent illustration, where the “I” of “VALENCIA” has been deliberately omitted.(13)
Despite the suspicions, the evidences found the last two cases are not yet 100% conclusive. So we’ll have to dedicate proximately another short study to the discovery of the origins of those fantasies.
From the Uniontown provisional no forgery has been reported yet, as far as I could find out. There exists, however a strange 20 cts bogus stamp. The surprising thing is, that the Torres illustration of the 5 cts value and the bogus value show an identical wrong design in all details, of course except for the value.
The 20 cts item has thus been made with the same stone of the original suffering the value a retouching on the stone or may be in this case on the transfer copy. Howsoever, it seems very logical to suppose the existence of a yet not described 5cts and even a 10 cts forgery.
In all three samples above depicted we have to state an identic design. The number of background lines, the number of shading lines and their disposition, the number of strands of the hair and their disposition, nowhere relevant differences can be discovered. The inscription is identic as well. The two “S” of “CENTS” show the same particular design in all samples and even diminutive details like the “junction” of the “R” and the “L” of “ORLEANS” or the little treat of the “2” at the upper right value-oval can be found on all stamps.
From this fantasy stamp only samples with the exactly same design are reported and all contemporary illustrations were published by editors that were clients of Torres. As long as no distinct samples appear, we have to suppose that they do not exist. This said it is obvious, that Torres is the author of this fake.
The last of the examples presented in this paragraph is a Nashville fake, one of various fantasy products allegedly issued during the American Civil War (1861-1865). It was identified and described long since as a forgery.(14) The different form of the value and the adornments should be evidence enough, that this item is curiously as forgery of a fantasy-stamp, not the only one Torres made.(15) The Torres-illustration is taken from the Moens catalogue. I think, further comments are not needed.
The Provisional Issues
The Provisional issues are not depicted in the Torres Album either. We have to draw once more on the 1877 Moens catalogue, which shows 30 different illustrations of those stamps.(16) Now five forgeries made with the original stones of those illustrations will be presented.
New Orleans, Riddell 2cts
The background-lines of the central disk are much narrower in the forgery and the white line surrounding the value number is not interrupted. The drop- shaped ornaments at each side of the “PAID” do not touch as in the original the semi-circle label with the inscription “CENTS”. The upper left stylized leaf finishes at the upper left corner of the upper label with a thick point, a bit thicker as its diagonally opposite equivalent. A lot of further differences between the corner adornments of the genuine and the fake are, as all the just mentioned features, coincident on the forgery and its illustration.
Memphis
The main differences between the genuine and all different forgeries of this stamp are the positions of the diamonds of the background network in relation with the lettering. Our figure shows a sample of the second forgery, at the left of the Torres-fake, in order to facilitate the detection of the main distinctive features. What seems to be a sort of prolongation of the right stroke of the “A” of “PAID”, that touches later the “5” of the value in the middle with its peak, is in reality in our Torres sample the diamond, half-covered by the character.
The (partly covered) diamonds placed around the word “MEMPHIS” appear on the illustration as well as on the forgery in the exactly same positions, showing the same shape.
Mobile
The plough on the field below the central star and the person holding with her right arm crossed a sickle that appears near its left shoulder are essential elements of the genuine design. None of the known forgeries does depict them approximately correct.
On our forgery and illustration there is no trace of the plough. The field where it appears on the original is converted into a little mound with two “plants”, small treats emerging from the ground at each end of the mound. The crossed corner adornments are smaller than in the original. Most other diminutive details coincide except for some minor differences obviously due to the particularities of the printing process.
We can even present a second, different Torres forgery of the same stamp.
This illustration is taken from the catalogue of Arthur Maury. This Parisian stamp dealer was a loyal client of Torres.1 The presented image suggests another Torres-joke: “OTFICE” instead of “OFFICE”, although we have to admit, that in some catalogue editions there seems to exist a “broken” arm of the “F”, being linked, however at its left with a T-shaped “arm” to the preceding “O”. Anyway, there are enough features, that let it completely clear, that the illustration and the real existing fake proceed from the same copy or stone. The differently shaped corner elements, the in each case different height of the characters of the upper inscription, the poor execution of the central image, the number of background-lines and their distribution, all those features coincide.
Tellico planes
The outer frame of the forgery does not show the typical originally broken lines at the corners and the upper left part of the genuine. The inner frame does not exist. This should be evidence enough to qualify the second sample as a forgery.
The following distinguishing elements between the original and the forgery are all common to the fake and the Moens-Torres illustration. Their frame is broken at the lower right corner, the dot after “TENN” is missing, and the left pair of stars is strongly deformed. The left lower stars are not vertically levelled. In the genuine the lateral adornments of the value do not touch those of the “element frame”, all elements are perfectly achieved, shaped and levelled, whereas the forgery shows quite a lot of imperfections as broken lines and elements touching one another coinciding in each and every case with the illustration.
The presented coincidences even in diminutive details in all those cases prove that our initial hypothesis was right.
Acknowledgement: Richard Frajola, Patricia Kaufmann, Evert Klaseboer.
1 GLV, GJBM.
NOTES
1. Plácido Ramón de Torres [PRT]: Álbum ilustrado para sellos de correo… [AS], Barcelona 1879.
2. Nigel Gooding, Gerhard Lang-Valchs [GLV]:The first modern stamp album – a handbook for detecting fakes and forgeries. The case of the Philippine stamps. Philippine Philatelic Journal, First Quarter 2019, p. 5-13 (1st part), Second Quarter 2019, p. 5-13 (2nd part).
3. The Early Scott Catalogues and Their Illustrations. Discovering a Spanish Forger’s Footprints, Collectors Club Philatelist,nº 96, Nov.-Dec. 2016, p. 205-210.
4 GLV: Los grabadores de Jean-Baptiste Moens [GJBM], Eco Filatélico y Numismático, Sept. 2017, p. 30-32 (1st part), Oct. 2017, p. 30-32 (2nd part).
5. PRT, AS, p. 184.
6. JBM: Les timbres-poste illustrés [TPI], Bruxelles, 1864. Sheets (planches) 26, 1-3.
7. http://www.rfrajola.com/csa/csaindex.htm, CSA General Issues Forgeries, 10 cents, type #4.
8. The research on the Torres-forgeries of the Philippine stamps and the stamps of the Spanish Carlist War revealed similar results. There we see other examples that show that Torres made various retouched and clearly different illustrations and fakes of certain stamps.
9. JBM, TPI, sheet/planche 26.
10. Stanley, Gibbons, & Co.’s Descriptive Catalogue and Price List, 1888, Appendix, # 574. As shown in the article Early British Stamp Experts and Spanish Forgeries, London Philatelist vol. 126, nº 1444, p. 132-138, Stanley Gibbons used, as most European catalogues did as well, the Torres illustrations.
11. GLV: GJBM.
12. GLV: The Torres Stamp Fun Factory [TSSF], Stamp Lover, vol. 109, nº 6, Dec. 2017, p. 173-175. Olga Frey, GLV: Moens, Torres und die Zemstvo-Marken, Deutsche Zeitschrift für Russland-Philatelie, Nr. 105, Jan. 2017, p. 19-26. Russian version: Моэнс, Торрэс и Земство, Philatelia, Moscú, Sept. 2017, p. 28-31 (1st part), Dec. 2017, p. 29-31, (2nd part).
13. GLV: The Carlist Fakes, Moens and Torres, Fakes, Forgeries, Experts, nº 19, May 2017, p. 69-84.
14. http:// www.rfrajola.com/csa/csaindex.htm [09.01.2017, 11.20].
15. GLV : TSFF.
(16) JBM: Catalogue prix-courant de Timbres-poste…, Bruxelles 1877, planche 8, #480-509.