Description:

- £2 black & rose-carmine forgery with the tell-tale white flaw off Warrnambool, Adelaide cds, well centred, a couple of short perfs, 'SPERATI/["129"]/REPRODUCTION' h/s on the reverse, Cat $7500. [The £2 Roo was the only Commonwealth of Australia issue produced by master-forger Jean de Sperati. His method was to fade-out the design of a genuine low denomination stamp then print the desirable high value by photolithography. The paper & postmark are therefore genuine. This is the stamp illustrated in Robson Lowe's "Empire in Australasia" at page 348. Greg Pope's example - with machine cancellation !! - sold at the Prestige auction of 24/1/2004 for $4140]