Russian Levant Obrazets overprints

Sometimes you notice things, sometimes you don't. Here are two Levant surcharges on Imperial stamps. In the background you can see some kind of blue diagonal inscription, very weak and unreadable unless you know what it says. It says OBRAZETS and these are Specimens, even though this is not the usual form of Russian OBRAZETS overprints which are big,bold, unmistakeable and much forged on computers. But if I had not seen these almost invisible blue oveprints before, I would have missed them.

I Googled to check that I was right and within the usual 45 seconds had located an interesting Auction lot from Cherrystone where the blue OBRAZETS is combined with a UPU administration's own SPECIMEN overprint. The lot sold for $500.

Click on Images to Magnify

Lot #2358 RUSSIAN OFFICES IN THE TURKISH EMPIRE 1903-05 surcharged 35pi and 70pi on 3.50r and 7r respectively, each overprinted "Obrazets" (specimen) in blue cyrilic letters, affixed on piece and further handstamped "Specimen" in violet (Samuel ty. NA2), as applied bythe Natal Post Office on receipt from the UPU, fine and possibly unique combination of Specimen overprints, with BPA cert.

Russian Levant: Which lot would you buy?

Don't read on until you have made your choice!

At the top, a stamp sold for 20 €uro in the recent www.filateliapalvelu.com auction.

Underneath, another Lot unsold at the starting price of 60 €uro

As far as I can tell from the scan of the first Lot, the basic stamp is from the later ( 1890) printing of the 10 kopeck which has different basic shades compared to the 1872 printing It also has a later-style R.O.P.I.T cancellation. So the overprint (which was issued in 1876) can't be genuine. (These later R.O.P.I.T cancels also exist in forged versions, described in Tchilingirian's work, and these forged versions turn up on things like the 1918 so-called "Beirut" R.O.P.I.T  overprints)

The second lot (which I put up for sale) shows the shade of basic stamp you would expect for the 1872 printing and three stamps are signed by the late Eric Peel, who knew about these overprints.