Dear Ross
Nice work
This seller has spread his wings it seems and he is now dealing in a wide variety of forged items. I note Daves comments about the cleaned revenue stamp and Ross you had shared the fake postmark with me before.
Initially he was home to OS patterns on KGV and Roos and the usual sprinkling of 1928-1930 commems, but he has spread to OSNSW perfins of the small (type B) which he produces on a range of early issues that they are not found on and the larger type C found on KGV issues. He also has a die of the NSW Government OS
http://www.ebay.com/itm/5d-4-1-2d-Purpl ... 35b8a3dfb6
This item is a most unlikely one but they turn up from time to time. To my mind all the FIVE PENCE are fakes although I have heard that there is an official cover that has been sited that carries a TWO PENCE overprint. Call me a cynic but I would expect to see 100 of a perfin loose before I found one on a cover and if the only one I can find is on a cover or is mint , then alarm bells begin to ring.
You can also find from this seller a good range of OS overprints and all very cheap. I wonder if anyone will ever learn enough about these to be able to expertise them.
There is a very obvious tell with his larger (Melbourne) OS strikes on the pictorials which I feel safe to mention here. His strikes are in perfect relation in the horizontal but this only shows that he does not know the structure of the Melbourne OS device which has dies in a vertical array and not a horizontal array as the OS, OSNSW etc ..It produces strikes with consistent relationships between vertical strikes and inconsistent relationships between horizontal strikes.
This guy has been at it for more than 18 months by my memory and he is making a comfortable income from defrauding ebay buyers and polluting the collector base. What is more ebay seem most reluctant to act against him and when they do he just pops up again with a new id and we are back to square one.
To mask his activities and isolate the buying community from each other he conducts private auctions. This is his greatest tell and I have warned our members many times to not buy from private auctions located from Sydney. Of late he has moved the "shop window" to appear that he is located in Queensland.
The bottom line is that we have to continue to pester ebay to shut this seller down, continue to warn all and sundry and be vigilant for his return.
David