Continued.......
Now, gentlemen, I will give you a few dates. You will find that in July,
1890, he was in possession of one of these 1d. black English stamps with
the letters "V.R." in the corners. He took it, first of all, to Mr. Buhl,
a gentleman carrying on business in Queen Victoria Street ; but he did not
succeed in getting rid of it, because Mr. Buhl was not satisfied with it.
I shall prove before you that took place as far back as July, 1890, so as
to show he had in his possession a stamp having in the corners the letters
"V.R.," which would not, to his knowledge, be accepted by a man skilled
and expert in these matters. On August 12th of the same year he went to
another gentleman, a stamp dealer, in Leicester Square, and offered him a
black English stamp with the letters "V.R." in the corners. He said he had
got it from an old gentleman in whose possession it had been for a long
time, and he sold it to Mr. Giwelb for £4. As a matter of fact, if you can
find a person who wants a stamp of this kind at the time of disposing of
it, it would be worth more than £4 ; but that was the price paid by Mr.
Giwelb, who is himself a dealer, and who could have sold it, if genuine,
at a profit. It will be proved to you that that stamp is one of those
which I have described as the ordinary English stamp which would have had
the Maltese cross in the corners, but which has been altered by having the
letters "V.R." inserted instead. On the 18th August he sold another stamp
- a 12 cents Mexican stamp - to the same gentleman for 15s. That stamp was
given a value by altering the colour of it. Sometimes stamps of exactly
the same description are issued, but of a different colour. It seems to be
the fact that the green Mexican stamp at that time was comparatively of
trifling value, but the brown one was much more rare, and would command,
therefore, a much larger price ; in fact, the difference was so great that
a dealer would sell the green 12 cents Mexican stamp for 3d. or 4d.,
whereas the brown one would be worth from £2 to £3. The reason of that,
again, is that in issuing these stamps some of the Mexican stamps were
issued of a brown colour by accident, and they got into circulation. Of
course, they were withdrawn from circulation at once; but that gives them
their value to collectors - I mean the fact of their being rare. In
passing, I ought to have mentioned that, with regard to this black English
stamp, the prisoner had in his possession, among the plant for carrying on
this business, a die which could be used for producing these letters "V.R."
in the corners. Again, in December, 1890, he went to the shop of a Mr.
Reya, of Oxford Street, who occasionally purchases foreign stamps. He will
tell you that the prisoner called upon him on the 3rd December, 1890, and
produced a 4 annas Indian stamp with this peculiarity - that the Queen's
head was upside down. For that reason the stamp was of considerable value.
The prisoner told Mr. Reya some story about it, and Mr. Reya bought it for
£7 10s. He subsequently sold it to another gentleman, who is in the habit
of purchasing stamps, for £15 and it was eventually sold for £20. It will
be proved, with reference to that stamp, that the way in which the thing
was done was by taking out part of the stamp, reversing the Queen's head,
and so producing a valuable stamp. Dealing with ordinary stamps that has
to be done with great skill, and in such a way as to deceive the eyes of
those persons who would even look very closely at them. He was at that
time in communication with a witness whom I shall call before you, to whom
he spoke with regard to stamps, and you will hear that the question of
taking the Queen's head out of the first issue of the four anna Indian
stamp, and reversing it, was the subject of discussion, and the prisoner
made the observation that he could practically do anything he pleased with
stamps.
Then, gentlemen, on December 22nd the prisoner sold a blue Cape of Good
Hope stamp to Mr. Reya. The value of that stamp depends on its colour. A
large number can be bought cheaply of another colour, but the blue stamp
is worth a considerable sum, being rare. The red stamp is the cheap colour,
but that colour can be altered by the use of acids; and in the possession
of the prisoner were found acids that would be useful for that purpose.
Gentlemen, another case is that of Mr. Bright, of Bournemouth. The
prisoner seems to have been in communication with him by means of
correspondence, and he wrote from Church Street, Islington, the place
where he had taken rooms and where he received letters. He passed there in
the names of "Assmus" and "Bernard." The point with regard to his passing
by two names is that in the correspondence to Mr. Bright he said he was
desirous of introducing Mr. Assmus to Mr. Bright ; and later on he went
there in another capacity for the purpose of introducing himself as Mr.
Assmus. That shows the trouble he took to carry out these frauds. [The
learned counsel read some extracts from the correspondence]. I need not
read all the letters to you, but it is plain that he was sending stamps to
these people who had the means of disposing of them in their business. The
Baden stamps which he mentioned are not stamps which have been altered or
manipulated in any way, but they are absolutely forged altogether. Any
alteration of a stamp would be a forgery ; but these are the entire
productions of the prisoner.
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