Some of us have decided to initiate tentatively a sort of opinion
service/semi-expertizing effort. So far as I can tell, it will mainly have
to do with items on ebay, but other matters such as the authenticity
of Palestine perfins or of Board of Trade perfins could also come
up. Any contributions having to do with these difficult issues are
welcome. 

Today I want to do two things. The first is to reiterate what was
scantily mentioned in the newletter about being wary of high-priced
Chinese (and Manchukuo) perfins on ebay. There is a history of
these perfins having been forged, and to at least two of us the recent
offerings on ebay appear to be fakes. 

The second is to convey some information about a perfin which isn't
a perfin. Recently, a German Tenth Army Corps stamp-like piece of
paper with letters made of holes in it has made its was through ebay
twice unsold and almost finished its third trip. In the enclosure  I
illustrate this piece of paper, another kind of offer we can refuse.
These are not perfins. I quote from Jurgen Settgast's email
message to me about them: 

"This is not a stamp with perfins. . . . This is just
Emergency-Military-Money, when at the end of WWI or in the first
days of the new Repuhlic parts of the army made their own money
(in blocs of 50 or 100 pieces) only good (more or less) for internal
payment (in cantines, etc.) and not convertible." Settgast thinks that
they "were overprinted in and by the name of a Town (I guess not
more than 50,000 inhabitants) "HAMELN" [in this case] and without
respect for the imperial eagle in a way Red-republican (these were
at that time frantic communists) usually did. Hameln was obviously
the Garrison for the X.Armeekorps and it happened in my mind
weeks after the war, when the beaten troops raced home as fast as
they could: first weeks of 1919. The "perfins" were done by the
"administrator" when something was paid with these sheets and
normally with these holes in them there were devaluated. . . .
GERMANY PRODUCED THOUSAND OF [types of]
PAPERMONEY in 1919-Dec. 1923  Each town published its own
money----but 95% only for speculation, printed in selfmade designs
in complete series, already packed in souvenir covers, etc." 

So, thanks to Jurgen for his excellent information, and I will no longer
much cherish the two examples I illustrate in the enclosure. 

Best to all of you, Alan 

Let me know what we can do in the newsletter to improve
BAPA. And let me know how I can get some of you to give me
something to put in the newsletter.

We plan a different sort of meeting for Westpex this year.
We will try to get a room with tables and a set-up so that
we can emphasize trading and the silent auction (which
happened so fast but was so successful last year).

Interesting material has been showing up on ebay. When I
first started using ebay, we were lucky if there were 50
perfin lots. Now the number seldom falls below 250 at any
one time. Lots of good material. Watch out also for
forgeries; for example, some very suspicious Chinese perfins
have been surfacing. If you have doubts about a lot, email
some of us and ask what we think. Let's exchange
information.

See you in the new millenium!      Alan

If you haven't been to one of these conventions, it's definitely worth doing. You meet a lot of people you've heard about and even corresponded with.  Perfinners are conspicuously the loudest and laughingest people there. We did have fun!!

Bob Schwerdt told me to contact Ed Neumann in Hope, British Columbia. Ed had never seen such a perfin and reported that unfortunately Sekowski, in whose judgment about Polish perfins he had great confidence, had passed away. Ed worried about the many forgeries of Polish perfins and whether or not this might also be a forgery. He did determine that the stamp and the date of the cancel were right for each other.

In the same lot a Danzig VD had showed itself. Since there were forgeries of the Danzig VD that appeared in the early 1980s, Ed thought it possible that my VD was fake. And, if it were fake, then the Polish FD would seem more suspect. A close look at my copy of the Danzig VD, however, convinced  him that the VD was genuine. We were building a case for considering the Polish FD genuine.

Then I happened to notice another lot offered by the same seller with a Polish HF monogram in it. By this time, I was wondering where the seller was getting these perfins.
She kindly answered my query, telling me that they all came from an old dealer in Milwaukee in the early 1980s. Ed Neumann was particularly interested in this source, and I think he hoped he had finally picked up the trail of the
forger.

Since there are notorious forgeries of this HF perfin, also dating from the early 1980s, I thought if I could get the lot, we would have still another piece of evidence one way or the other. If the Polish HF were forged, then the Polish FD was more suspect. If the HF were genuine, then the FD gained credibility. Eventually the lot came. Yes!!  Ed pronounced the HF perfin clearly  genuine. It was disappointing in a way, though, because now we remained as ignorant of the source of the forged perfins as ever. But on the other hand Ed concluded that we probably have a new Polish perfin!