1889 P&R 3c and imperf between horizontal 4c pair

Both of these stamps were released for use in 1889. The very noticeable difference in the forged 3c is the very much deeper shade of colour. There is also a difference in shade with the forged 4c but it is more subtle.

The 3c stamp has a chalky surface to it which sort of washes away on soaking and so it is much more noticeable in a mint stamp. The forgery has a dull deep violet colour. The second row shows the forged stamp in various guises including an imperf and one with a good imitation of the 14 bar cancel.

As usual I will simplify things by pointing the easy to notice differences between real and fake. With the 3c stamp, there are 2 constant coloured dot flaws as shown, one above N in CENTS and another in the inner lower corner next to the left lower ornament. One would need magnification to see it properly.

It is more straight forward with the forged 3c. All the corner ornaments are not well centred and in particular the two upper ones which are centred more inwards as shown here.

In these 2 rows, only the middle stamp is real. Again the forgeries can appeared with normal looking bar cancellations.

The 4c has a constant coloured dot flaw just beneath the second Chinese character on the right side. There is a normal looking "&" in between Postage & Revenue.

With the forged stamp, the coloured dot is missing and the "&" looks different with a shorter end stroke as shown. This should be the easiest way to differentiate between the two.

Got this recently for a few pennies. Looks like the real thing and is the moderately valuable imperf between horizontal variety.