A mint and a used North Borneo SG 2 ??

There are quite a few North Borneo "SG 2"s of dubious origin. The items perforated 14 were derived from the 1886 issue and is quite easy to differentiate. But the ones which were perforated 12 can be difficult. As outlined in my previous post here the genuine copies were from transfer A with generally good perforations. 

I bought the above item quite cheaply from a society stamp packet. It was described as perf 14 but I could see it was actually a perf 12. The question was whether it was genuine. The perfs here are actually quite constant as in transfer A unlike those of transfers B and C. But I failed to plate its position. 

There were other doubts as well. There is the question whether mint copies really exist as it is believed by some serious collectors of NB that the overprint was made ad hoc when purchased from the post office. There are reasons to believe that only the Kudat post office issued this adhesive.

Secondly, there are also fake overprints on genuine stamps. The London gang of Jeffrey, Sapry and Benjamin was thought to be responsible. Close scrutiny of the overprint in the above stamp reveal a couple of discrepancies. The bottom half of 8 is not completely round and flattened on one side. It has been written that this is one of the features of the fake overprint. Secondly there is a slight slant to the horizontal stroke in e of Cents.

So I believe that this is a good fake which would have fooled some collectors and dealers. There were some similar items which were offered in auctions in the past year or so for significant money.

This is perf 14 and is definitely a fraud. It is a great pity as the fake overprint was applied on top of a very desirable orange red 14 bar cancellation. This is the 1886 transfer D stamp. 

Since SG2 was issued at a time when postal cancellers were not in use until 1884, only items with pen cancels, crayon marks, AC mark and overseas arrival or transit cancels such as the Singapore undated double ring and the Hong Kong B62 should be considered as legitimate.