Madame Joseph Revisited

A display given to the Royal Philatelic Society London By Brian M Cartwright FRPSL.

5 May 2005

Just over ten years ago, the Royal Philatelic Society together with the Philatelic Trust, published the A5 book entitled "MADAME JOSEPH FORGED CANCELLATIONS". This book contained illustrations of the 454 implements which are now safely housed in the museum of the society.

These implements were originally owned by a lady stamp dealer, with premises in Irving Street, just off Trafalgar Square, her surname was Joseph, hence the referring to these implements as 'Madame Joseph's' or 'MJ's'.

Madame Joseph specialised in the repairing of stamps and the production of postmarking devices, but for very specialised work she 'sub-contracted' the work to someone in France. At one stage Madame Joseph attempted to establish a business in this country, with trained labour producing postmarking implements etc., but fortunately this never came to fruition.

A service Madame Joseph did offer to members of the trade, was the 'hire' of her implements for members to convert their own stamps into 'fine used' examples. This service may account for the perfect 100% strikes on some stamps, whilst others have only a faint part strike of one of her implements.

The author of the original book, Roger West, in conversation with Derek Warboys, the retired dealer who arranged for the purchase of these implements from Clive Santo in order to remove them from the open market place, said he was willing to name these dealers, some of whom were still in business in 2002!!

At an unknown date the implements changed ownership from Madame Joseph to the London Stamp dealer Gordon Rhodes, trading from 17A Lime Street in the city of London. In Kelly's directory he is listed as trading from 1935-1960.

The 1935 Silver Jubilee omnibus issue gave rise to a plethora of MJ cancellations with some countries having more than one implement dated 6 MAY 1935.

When Gordon Rhodes died the business was inherited by Cecil Jones, an inveterate gambler at the greyhound tracks. After several substantial losing bets he was quoted as saying "There is plenty more cash where that came from", so he probably continued the 'MJ' business until his own death.

For many years there had been suspicion that a number of postmarks found on stamps where used examples were generally more valuable than mint were forgeries. Robson Lowe, as early as 1935 (I refer you to the article in e-flagstaff by Neil Donen 2004 ndonen @ shaw.ca), had identified a number of faked cancellations on Silver Jubilee issues, these were probably Madame Joseph types 46, 75, 99, 100, 140, 141, 173, 286 and 303.

In 1980 Stanley Gibbons placed a footnote in the Falkland Islands section of their British Commonwealth catalogue under SG 127/38, the 1933 Centenary set, warning collectors of a forged cancellation dated '6th Jan 1933',subsequently this was to be identified as Madame Joseph type 153.

The dust jacket of the book 'Madame Joseph Revisited' illustrates a block of 4 of the 5/- with this cancellation.

As part of this display I show under Rhodesia a B.P.E. certificate dated 5 APR 1991 for a £1 double head with a forged cancellation. On production of the book this could be identified as Madame Joseph type 327.

Once the book had been published any item which came into stock at Stanley Gibbons and had identifiable Madame Joseph cancellations were put to one side until a decision on value and disposal had been decided. A rubber handstamp was produced, I had an identical handstamp produced for my own collections, and my pages bear the impression in green, whereas the SG stamps have the impression in black - on the reverse I hasten to add !!

Fortunately, or unfortunately, depending on your point of view, SG had purchased the EHW stock, comprising many hundreds of thousands of stamps, amongst which we were to find numerous examples of Madame Josephs' work.

Further examples have been found in dealers stock, auctions and from collectors who have come to know of any interest in these forgeries.

I thought the web would also be a source of material but unfortunately many of the stamps offered as Madame Josephs cancellations were in fact genuinely used examples, offered at an inflated price.

My display shows numerous examples of 'MJ' types from a large number of the countries known to have 'MJ' implements, but of special interest you may wish to view the following examples of basic stamps with varieties which have received 'MJ' cancellations. I do not believe these stamps were selected for their having varieties but they are fortuitous, the person applying the cancellation being unaware of their existence.

(Click on the images to enlarge)

A) Varieties on basic stamps, subsequently receiving a 'MJ' cancellation

Type 21 Ascension 1 d 'tear drop'.
Type 50 Barbuda 2½d inverted wmk.
Type 110 Cayman Is 'WAR STAMP' 1½d 'missing fraction bar'.
Type 218 Jamaica WAR STAMP 1½d 'opt inverted'.
Type 219 Jamaica 1 d 'SER.ET'. Type 248 Malta 2d 'extra window'.
Type 249 Malta 2/6d 'damaged value tablet'.
Type 352 S.K.N. 1/- 'break in value tablet'.
Type 353 S.K.N. 5/- 'frame break above ornament'.
Type 436 Zanzibar 12a 'first z antique'.

Some of the implements in their current state, as held in our museum, show characteristics which clearly identify them as emanating from the 'MJ' horde.

B) Easily identifiable 'Madame Joseph' types.

Type 38 Bahamas 'short 'T' in 'OCT'.
Type 151 Falkland Is 'wide 'E' in 'STANLEY'.
Type 239 Kedah a large block of type between '1' and 'DEC'.
Type 340 St Helena 'H' of 'HELENA' with broken cross bar.

Instances of substituted date stamps are rare, at present I have only two in my collection, GibraltarKGV8/- with the year '10' suppressed and the numeral '2' inserted, and Papua 10/with the year '07' suppressed and the numeral '28' inserted. Suppressed dates are more common.

I only count a strike as having a suppressed date where the date forms part of the cancellation on the stamp and by some method the date part has been deliberately suppressed or blanked out.

C) Substituted and Suppressed Dates

Type 68 British Guiana 72c year suppressed.
Type 70 British Guiana 60c day and month suppressed.
Type 149 Falkland Is QV 4d block of 4 year suppressed.
Type 208 Grenada 1/-, 2/6, 5/- day, month, year suppressed.
Type 267 Nauru 2d, 2½, 1/- day, month, year suppressed.
Type 322 Papua 2d, 5d suppressed dates.
Type 370 St Vincent 2/-year suppressed.
Type 381 Seychelles KGVR 1.50 year suppressed.

The way in which I would love to collect 'MJ's' is to have an example of the genuine cancellation and a 'MJ' of the same date. This dream can never be fulfilled, to date I have just seven such examples.

D) Genuine and 'MJ' cancellations of the same date

Type 33 Bahamas 2½d genuine £1 M.J.
Type 150 South Shetlands 1d genuine 2½d MJ.
Type 192 Gilbert & Ellice Is. ½d genuine 1/- 1935 Silver Jubilee MJ.
Type 341 St Helena1/- genuine 10/- MJ
Type 359 St Lucia1/- genuine, numerous values with MJ.
Type 381 Seychelles 15 c on 16c (surch inv) genuine, KEVII 6cMJ.
Type 405 Swaziland 1½d genuine 1½d MJ.

Thanks to the museum staff here at No. 41 various implements and accessories have been placed on view in the entrance hall cabinet.

Finally I would just like to say that the notes accompanying this display have been kept brief for one very important reason.

The revised book 'Madame Joseph Revisited' has recently been published by the Royal and examples are readily available. If you wish to read further into this interesting area of our philatelic history please purchase a copy of the fully illustrated book.