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Illustrated cover from London to Weert (Holland) with a postal forgery of 24 P, type Machin. The forgery was intended for inland letters, therefore the postage is uprated with 2 P., the difference between the inland and foreign letter rate.
The letter is genuine handled by the Post and shows two different rows of sorting stripes, a British for outgoing mail and a Dutch for incoming mail.
These postal forgeries were sold in 1993 in tobacco and newspaper stores in the suburbs of London.
Among other things for philatelists the forgery is easily recognizable by the perforation which is line perforation 11 instead of the harrow perforation 15:14 of genuine stamps.
For the rest the reproduction in offset matches rather well with the photogravure of the originals.
It nearly never happens that British stamps were forged to the detriment of the Post. After the famous 1/- green "Stock Exchange Forgery" of 1872, which is generally accepted as world's most unusual and interesting postal forgery, this Machin of 24 P. is the second British postal forgery in Great Britain's history ever.
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