British war forgery of the Austrian Heller-Issues
These stamps are war forgeries produced by the British to do damage to Austria, but probably they were never used.
| Genuine: | |||
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State / region: | Austrian | |
| Mi.-No.: | 186 | ||
| Value: | 5 Heller | ||
| Print: | typography (Bdr.) | ||
| Perforation: | K 12½:12½ | ||
| Watermark: | without | ||
| War forgery: | |||
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|
State / region: | War forgery (1st world war) | |
| Mi.-No.: | not seperately listed | ||
| Value: | 5 Heller | ||
| Print: | typography (Bdr.) | ||
| Perforation: | K 12½:12½ and imperforated | ||
| Watermark: | without | ||
| Remarks: | Miscellaneous descrepancies to the genuine drawing of the stamp | ||
| Genuine: | |||
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|
State / region: | Austrian | |
| Mi.-No.: | 188 | ||
| Value: | 10 Heller | ||
| Print: | typography (Bdr.) | ||
| Perforation: | K 12½:12½ | ||
| Watermark: | without | ||
| War forgery: | |||
|
|
State / region: | War forgery (1st world war) | |
| Mi.-No.: | not seperately listed | ||
| Value: | 10 Pf. | ||
| Print: | typography (Bdr.) | ||
| Perforation: | K 12½:12½ and imperforated | ||
| Watermark: | without | ||
| Remarks: | Miscellaneous descrepancies to the genuine drawing of the stamp | ||
| Genuine: | |||
|
|
State / region: | Austrian | |
| Mi.-No.: | 223 | ||
| Value: | 25 Heller | ||
| Print: | typography (Bdr.) | ||
| Perforation: | K 12½:12½ | ||
| Watermark: | without | ||
| War forgery: | |||
|
|
State / region: | War forgery (1st world war) | |
| Mi.-No.: | not seperately listed | ||
| Value: | 5 Pf. | ||
| Print: | typography (Bdr.) | ||
| Perforation: | K 12½:12½ | ||
| Watermark: | without | ||
| Remarks: | Miscellaneous descrepancies to the genuine drawing of the stamp | ||
Identification of war forgeries:
5 und 10 Heller:
The printers ink of the forgery of the 10 Heller is brighter than the genuine. In opposite the 5 Heller forgery looks darker than the genuine one. The print forgeries is much more fuzzy compared with the original and therefore not so detailed as of the genuine stamps.
Differences and identification of the 10 Heller Forgery (PDF)
25 Heller:
With the yellow paper the blue colour appears lightly green in comparison with the genuine stamp. Furthermore the print of the forgery is blurred, so that the genuine one looks more detailed and finer (which is good to see on the border of the letters (in the middle down). The earlap looks round in the drawing of the genuine stamp, whereas the forgery is more square.
Background:
These three stamps are probably the first espionage forgeries which were "officially" produced. For a template served the values 5 and 10 Hellers out of the series "Kaiserkrone" (issued on 28.09.1916) and the value of 25 Heller, which is out of the series "Kaiser Karl I." and was issued on the 10.05.1917.
The Warforgery was quite definitely produced by the company "Thomas de la Rue".
