Lot 96 Newfoundland #40F 5c Blue Harp Seal, 1876 - 1879 Rouletted Cents Issue, An Ungraded Single With Perforation 12 and A Second Example With Serrate Roulette, Likely Fake, But The Correct Gauge, Useful Reference Material

An ungraded single of the 5c blue Harp Seal from the 1876-1879 Second Cents Issue with potentially forged perforation 12, and a second stamp with what appears to be a serrate roulette.

The right stamp is perforated & the correct perf, but left stamp is incorrect, but it looks like serrated roulette. The serrate roulette is basically sound, but the perforated stamp is faulty. Interesting reference material.The most likely explanation is that these are rouletted stamps that have been fraudulently altered to resemble perforated and serrate rouletted stamps. In the Carr collection some months ago, we sold another perf. 12 stamp, also as a fake. This does raise the very remote possibility that these were legitimate trials. However, no such record exists in all the definitive literature on Newfoundland philately, making this very unlikely.

Our estimate of the value is $5, as reference material.

The rouletted cents issue displays many of the same paper variations found on the previous Second Cents issue, with both horizontal and vertical wove papers being found, as well as a very soft porous wove paper.