Fakes, Forgeries & Jurgensiana
Jurgensiana: The Legacy of A.A. Jurgens
1866. Jurgensiana. Fake Cover purporting to be OHMS sent at 4d rate to CAPE TOWN 'JU 16 66'.
Without the embellishment of 4 x 1d Revenues this cover has little to commend it ie.
the forger thought it worthless in its original state, therefore suitable for faked embellishment.
Note that the stamps have been applied on the left where there was blank space.
The stamps have been cancelled with an unusually fine small triangular obliterator.
"Jurgensiana" is a philatelic term used to describe the forgeries, fakes and related materials created A. A. Jurgens RDPSA, FRPSL. Among his fraudulent body of work he made unauthorised reprints from the original plates of the Cape of Good Hope 'Woodblock' issue
and embellished original postal history covers from the Cape and Bechuanaland.with stamps and or false postmarks. Among the later he specialised in adding Cape revenue stamps and bisected triangles to genuine covers. Caveat emptor.
Above, a facsimile page from Jurgens' reference work The Handstruck Letter Stamps of the Cape of Good Hope from 1792–1853. The section it is taken from deals with 'Postally Used Revenue Stamp's for which he makes a strong case. The Black & White examples shown here in Jurgens' book are both fakes, as are the colour images shown above and below. The similarity between them is striking.
1865. Jurgensiana. Fake Cover purporting to be OHMS sent at 12d rate to CAPE TOWN 'xx xx 65'.
Without the embellishment of a 12d Revenue this cover has little to commend it ie.
the forger thought it worthless in its original state, therefore suitable for faked embellishment..
Note that the stamp has been applied on the right where there was blank space.
It has been cancelled with an unusually fine small triangular obliterator.
Over the years, I have learned - often at my expense - about the fakes and forgeries that plague South African philately. Early on, I bought covers that were not what they seemed, sold by dealers and collectors keen to recover losses or profit by passing them on as genuine. Having burned my fingers, I turned my curiosity toward understanding the faker’s craft and began collecting their creations. There is a market for proven forgeries. Good quality convincing fakes can fetch a premium - as a fake!
As a word of caution, not all dealers welcome being told their wares are imposters, most especially when they igtnorant.
Adriaan Albertus Jurgens 1886 – 1953.
A fine looking Afriikaner at odds with the 'Philatelic Establishment'.
Jurgens' 'South African' rival was Gilbert Allis, a Yorkshireman.
The most infamous South African forger to be caught out was Adriaan Albertus Jurgens, once a fine and admired philateic fellow, respected as a postal historian and the celebrated author of 'The Handstruck Letter Stamps of the Cape of Good Hope from 1792–1853 and the Postmarks from 1853 to 1910' (1943), which earned him the Crawford Medal from the Royal Philatelic Society London in 1944. This reference work contained some illustrations of covers photographed in black and white which have never been seen outside of it. Their curious absence from the bright light of scrutiny hinted at the fact that Jurgens was hiding something.
Jurgens' career of deception had fairytale beginnings. As a 12-year-old he is said to have bribed British soldiers burning colonial records on Woodstock Beach, Cape Town, trading beer for the chance to salvage pre-adhesive envelopes and others bearing Cape triangular stamps. These gave him a head-start in colonial collecting, possibly even imparting the notion that bribery, flattery and the tricking of fools was the way to get ahead. By the 1920s, he was a respected philatelist and a friend of Union Archivist C. Graham Botha. In the 1930s when Botha was down-sizing the Archives, he allowed Jurgens to keep historic covers after their letters were removed. It was presumably from the Archives that Jurgens amassed the covers that he would later 'improve' with stamps and postmarks.
1938. Promotional Label. Seventh Philatelic Congress of Southern Africa, Cape Town.
Jurgens is believed to have been an organiser of the 7th Congress Meeting in Cape Town.
This promotional label emphasies two areas of great interest to him - VOC handstamps and Triangles.
Jurgens believed the VOC canceller was used at the Cape and claimed to have two covers proving this, neither seen.
To date, no new evidence has been presented to prove his claim of its use at the Cape in the late 18th c.
Between 1940 and 1941, Jurgens produced reprints of the Cape “Woodblock” triangles using the original defaced plates from the South African Museum. What began as Museum authorised black impressions for display purposes only slipped sideways under Jurgen into coloured reprints on various papers, virtually indistinguishable from genuine stamps. Jurgens distributed personalised presentation sets to prominent philatelists. His 'Handstruck Letter Stamps' reference book published in 1943 includes complete sheets of 1d (red) and 4d (blue) Woodblocks. Chapter LVII of his book documents his printing of them. Occasionally sheets very similar to these come up for sale without any provenance.
1865. Jurgensiana. Fake Cover sent SWELLENDAM 'MR xx 1867' at 6d rate to CAPE TOWN.
Without the embellishment of a 6d Revenue this cover has little to commend it ie. it is suitable for fakery.
The stamp has as per usual been cancelled with a fine strike of a small triangular obliterator.
Two points. 1]. the duplicate manuscript cancel of the revenue, 2]. the 6d rate. Why?
His book received a favourable review in London from the London Philatelist, the journal of the Royal Philatelic Society, and he was awarded the Crawford Medal for it by the Society in 1945. Unfortunately, the reviewers did nor realise "that many of the photographic illustrations in the book were in fact fakes with forged postmarks". (Douglas Roth, the S.A. Philatelist, February 1976.) On the strength of his book, Jurgens was invited to sign the Roll of Distinguished Philatelists of South Africa in 1948. In 1952 he signed the British Roll. This was the highpoint of Jurgens' career. Henceforth it would be all downhill once the first criticism of his work began to be heard.
His exposure as a faker and forger began at the National Philatelic Exhibition in Cape Town in 1952. Here juror Douglas Roth drew the attention of leading members of the Federation to Jurgens' "very extensive forgery of the pre-adhesive postmarks on genuine covers". As a result of Roth’s charges the police were alerted. The Cape Town CID raided Jurgens’s home in Tamboerskloof, seizing printing presses, line blocks and inks. The police found a small triangular obliterator made of soft type metal used to create postmarks. This had been manufactured by the Cape Times for "a leading Cape Town architect" who was also a philatelist, as was Dr L B Golschmidt.
In his Authors Note of 1938 at the front of his 'Handstruck Letter Stamps' reference book, Jurgens offers his "cordial thanks" to an impressive list of the Cape's rich and powerful. These included H. J. Lenton, the Postmaster-General; R. J. Barry, the Master of the Supreme Court; W. J. H. Gregory, the City Architect of Cape Town, (the man who "traced the letter stamps" for his book and who had the Cape Times produce the small triangular oblterator line block; J. H. Harvey Pirie, editor of the South African Philateleist and Dr L. B. Goldschmidt, a leading UCT medical academic, President of the Cape Town Philatelic Society and writer of the 'Handstruck Letter Stamps' Introduction. Their association with Jurgens was now an embarrassment best swept under the carpet. Although the Public Prosecutor had previouslt stated that charges would be forthcoming, the Attorney-General declined to prosecute. Nevertheless, Jurgens' reputation was irreparably damaged.
1940. Facsimile Presentation Card, Woodblock Errors of Colour.
Despite embellishing original covers with fake postmarks, Jurgens is best known for his unauthorised Woodblock reprints.
An article by Roth in The British Philatelic Association Journal exposed many of Jurgens' book’s illustrations as forgeries. Jurgens reply was evasive. He admitted knowledge of the fakes but blamed them on an “earlier generation” of philatelists. His second book, 'The Bechuanalands', also came under scrutiny and was also found to contain forged material. On 11 July 1953, Jurgens died suddenly of a coronary thrombosis. He would never clear his name, nor would anyone else attempt to do so on his behalf. Jurgens' tainted name now became synonymous with South African philatelic forgery and fakery.
The scandal did not end with Jurgens' death. More scandal followed when it was discovered that impressions of the Woodblock plates which should have been returned to the South African Museum after the 1952 SATISE Exhibition, had somehow ended up in Jurgens’s house. Before or when the police raided it, Jurgens was somehow able to smuggle it and other forged material to a friend, J.C. Silvie. In the 1970s after both men’s deaths, the impressions were discovered in Silvie's home by his widow. They were allegedly purchased from her and immediately destroyed by four leading South African philatelists, raising suspicions of a wider conspiracy and cover-up.
Over time the term “Jurgensiana” emerged to describe his legacy of forgeries and falsified postal history. As Franco Frescura has rightly observed in his article “Felons, Forgers and Fences”, (Forerunners 2017), Jurgens created “fake research to legitimise fake philately”. Despite Jurgen's exposure as a fraudster, philatelic bodies have largely avoided addressing his misconduct, possibly because the consequences of doing so might upset the market. As a result, Jurgens' research continued to be cited, most notably by Robert Goldblatt who used much of Jurgens’s work as the basis for his 'Postmarks of the Cape of Good Hope' (1984), thereby perpetuating his influence.
In 1976, Dr. H.O. (Hasso) Reisener, newly published author of 'The Special and Commemorative Postmarks, Cachets and Covers of South Africa. 1892-1975' (1975) wrote a letter to The South African Philatelist (June 1976) suggesting that it was possibly time for the PFSA to consider expunging Jurgens' name from the South African Roll of Honour. Goldblatt replied with a well-reasoned letter that argued that while Jurgens’s forgeries had undoubtedly harmed Cape philately, they had inadvertently enriched the collecting field by adding the further study of forgeries as a major new home-grown area of South African philately. A fair point!
Goldblatt continued. "The Jurgens fakes have now been fully canvassed, and to give further publicity can, in my opinion, only do more harm by frightening off potential Cape collectors and thus unthinkingly do greater disservice to Cape Philately than Jurgens with all his wilful faking could possibly have contemplated. It must also be borne in mind that the numerous articles written by the late Mr .Jurgens showed a very great and deep understanding of philately, and his book on the Handstruck Stamps of the Cape of Good Hope is still the Bible in this field." (At the time of writing thisa letter Goldblatt was using Jurgen's book to write his own.)
"Irrespective of his shortcomings, he (Jurgens) established himself as a very eminent Philatelist. Obviously, had the Federation been aware of his activities, he would never have signed the Roll of Distinguished Philatelists, but in all good faith he was invited so to do and having so done one cannot conceive of any good reason as to why a precedent should be set for the removal of Jurgens' name from the Roll of Distinguished Philatelists. "The evil that men do lives after them, but the good is oft interred with their bones". Yours faithfully, Robert Goldblatt, Parow."
Never having met Jurgens, I believe he viewed his fellow philatelists as fools to be tricked on the altar of his self-importance. The rival he despised most was Gilbert Allis, the only man whose achievements matched his. Allis was the author of 'Cape of Good Hope: Its postal history & postage stamps' (1930), the first 'proper' book on the subject. (It included the first Museum authorised Woodblock reprints). This won him the Crawford Medal (1931) from the Royal Philatelic Society London. He was a President of the Cape Town Philatelic Society when Jurgens was a member and the first signatory of the Roll of Distinguished Philatelists of South Africa. The only way Jurgens could outdo Allis was by creating a unique body of fake postal history covers that came with a false narrative.
Great write-up. Thanks Steve!
Larger than Life -The Memories of A. A. Jurgens.
I recently came across this biography of Jurgens in an old copy of the South African Philatelist. It is from the occassion of him being made an RDPSA in June 1951. While there was some suspicions about Jurgens at this time he would only be properly exposed in 1952.
If you’re studying Jurgens’ life or reputation, the transcribed article below is a useful primary source for understanding how he wanted to be seen and how the philatelic community publicly honoured him. However, it offers almost nothing critical or analytical. It maps the mythology around him but not the whole truth. If you seek a historically balanced profile, this piece should be treated as a colourful self-portrait filtered through a friendly editor, probably Dr J. H. Harvey Pirie working from notes supplied by Jurgens..
This 1951 biographical sketch is essentially a celebratory profile, half homage, half gentle roast, informal, anecdotal and admiring, drawing as it does on material supplied by Jurgens himself. Indeed, the editor acknowledges toning down his “picturesque” language. That alone signals that the article is selective, affectionate and not intended to be a rigorously researched biography. It reads as if the writer is capturing a personality rather than documenting a life chronologically or critically. The tone is light-hearted, probably just as Jurgens intended.
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Page 96
THE SOUTH AFRICAN PHILATELIST (June 1951).
Roll of Honour
ADRIAN ALBERT JURGENS.
(This short biographical notice is compiled from notes supplied by the subject of it, but the language is a little less picturesque than the original and not quite so reminiscent of that of the buccaneers 0 from whom it is felt he must be descended.)
A.A. says he was born on the farm Lewenvoet, now part of the Tamboer's Kloof district of Cape Town, on 1st April, 1886, but he had no say in the choice of date. 1 Educated at St. Mary's Convent School, Cape Town ; the Boy's High School, French Hoek ; and the South African College. As a boy always up to mischief. (Query : Has he grown up yet ? To many he is still known as "Boy Jurgens". 2). A favourite pastime was to catch snakes 3 and then to let them loose either in the convent garden or in the middle of Adderley Street. That they were always harmless species, such as mole snakes, was of little comfort to those who couldn't tell the difference between them and deadly cobras!
Outdoor hobbies were Shooting, Sea Fishing, Yachting, Photography and Mountaineering (Rock Climbing). Indulging in these he had many adventures. 4
He claims to have shot one large black-maned lion 5, but his best shot was getting his own left arm when riding a horse which had never before been bridled or saddled as a hunter. Sea-fishing in 1906 he was wrecked some fourteen miles off Robben Island, but after 24 hours' clinging to a spar in icy water he was rescued by the "John Paterson", Cape Town's famous port tug. 6 Another time he was seized by a large octopus when gathering red bait on a half submerged reef in Smitswinkel Bay. He had a fight for life, but got free leaving Mr. Octopus minus two tentacles 7 Next to fishing, mountaineering was his chief interest and in 16 years of it he climbed every known route on Table Mountain and some that were unknown. In addition he ascended practically every range and peak in the Western Province, including several first ascents. 8
He spent the best part of his life in a commercial institution in Cape Town, then took to building so that he could enjoy God's fresh air better; ended up a Master Builder and is now a retired one with a small bank balance! 9.
Married Louise Alice Maud Ross in 1918; they had one daughter, Barbara, but lost her at the age of 17 as a result of an accident. 10.
And now for his philatelic activities. He became interested in stamp collecting about the age of five and at that period thought nothing of swopping Cape triangulars for Guatemalan `pollies" and such like. As a youngster, however, he ultimately got together a very fine collection, including such items as Woodblooks' in blocks of four and both the errors; a strip of three Z.A.R. showing the `Transvaal' error; first issue of Natal, etc. In fact he says lie has never really had such good straightforward stamps since. This collection was stolen in 1906 and gave him such a sickener that he dropped collecting till 1921. 11
.
Then his wife, who was a keen general collector, persuaded him to start again. When he did, he concentrated on postal history and this has been his line ever since. He joined the Cape Town Philatelic Society about 1932 and soon afterwards became its Hon. Secretary, a post he held till 1942
His Cape and Bechuanaland postal history collections are world famous and he has published large books based on these collections. 12 He has other Southern African items as well, some of which have been dealt with in articles any may yet lead to more books. Philatelic awards in South Africa include practically everything he could get - Congress award for paper read at Congress ; numerou.s awards (mostly 'firsts') at various exhibitions, Skinner Cup, and finally, election to the Roll of Honour of Distinguished South African Philatelists.
Overseas the Royal Philatelic Society of London awarded him the Crawford Medal for his Cape book and promoted him to the Fellowship of the Society a considerable time before he would automatically have come up for promotion from Membership. He was the only South African invited to be a Judge at the New York International Exhibition in 1947, but was unable to accept this honour. 13
0]. It starts with a light-hearted tone that is almost boyishly myth-making with the reference to “buccaneers from whom he must be descended”. This, perhaps correctly, frames Jurgens as a larger-than-life figure, an adventurer first, a philatelist second. This is a personality-driven narrative rather than one based on historical reporting. Buccaneers were a type of pirate or privateer!
1]. Jurgens would, however, be the only person with a say in his decision to fool the South African philatelic world with fakery and falsehoods.
2]. This suggests a youtful immaturrity. The term 'Boy' when given to a White South African man, particularly an Afrikaner is usually an ironic reference to the great size of the man. A similarly used oxymoron is 'Tiny', as in Tiny Neethling, a big, strong 1960s Springbok front-rower.
3]. Catching snakes and scorpions was something that most boys growing up in South Africa with access to the outdoors did at that time and indeed much later. Boys will be boys! The “snake” story says more about the writer’s desire for colour than about the Jurgens’ actual youth. Howewver, what it does introduce is an early glimpse into Jurgens’ lifelong taste for drama and showmanship, possibly even one upmanship.
4]. These were all activities that many South African boys would have participated in. Jurgens was one such boy!
5]. The last black-maned Cape lion was shot in the Cape Province in 1858. Another source states the last of the subspecies was hunted in Natal in 1865. The Cape lion is considered extinct, although there were some rumors of a tiny surviving population in the northern Orange Free State until 1865. It is generally believed to have been extinct by 1870, some 16 years before Jurgens was born. This is presumably a tall tale!
1904. Image of the John Patterson tug converted to the 'Cape Girl' with fore to aft balustrade deck.
6]. The 'John Patterson' tug arrived in Algoa Bay in April 1883 but being unsuited to the waters off Port Elizabeth and with 'capricious' engines and controls it was sold in June 1892 to a Cape Town firm and then taken over by the Table Bay Harbour Board. In December 1904 she was sold and renamed 'Cape Girl' and used for sight-seeing cruises around Table Bay. She was lost in 1906 on a fishing expedition off Cape Hangklip. If, as Jurgens claims, he was rescued by the "famous port tug", the 'John Patterson', his adventure would have taken place between 1892 when he was six and 1904 when he was 18 or younger. Probably another tall tale with a grain of truth.
7]. South Africans love to tell tales to foreigners about their encounters with snakes and sharks, etc. Jurgen's octopus adventure is a variation of this. It is an attempt to play on an ancient primordial phobia that sorts the men (Jurgens / South African) from the boys (usually the English). I can find no reports of such incidents with octopi at Cape Point. It is almost certainly an emebellishment of whatever happened. He may well have encountered a large octopus in a rock pool but there is no species of octopi there big enough to seize a man so that he has to fight for his life. Another tale tale straight out af a 'Boy's Own Adventure' comic!
8]. This is entirely possible. Growing up in Tamboerskloof Jurgens had Table Mountain as his backyard. If he did not develop a love of the mountain he was not human. Many Capetonians have walked, clambered and climbed over the more accessible parts that he had more immediate access to. Once one has done this and looks out from the top of Table Mountain in awe and wonderthe peaks of the hinterland naturally call out to you also.
9]. I am not sure what to make of this. It is a smoke-screen perhaps. I do not know what the "Commercial institution in Cape Town" was. I understand him not wanting to work in an office when there is all that beautiful weather outside. I understand him wanting to become a builder and work outdoors. I have a friend in South Africa who became a builder and whi is the richest among all my friends.
I do not understand why Jurgens mentions having a "small bank balance" unless he is suggesting that it is a large one. He is suggesting that he was happier with the quality of life outdoors which building allowed him to enjoy, despite it being less profitable than a profession. And herein lies the rub. Many of his closest colleagues were monied professionals - doctors, architects, judges and the like.
Is this his way of saying he is the richer man? When, if Jurgens was a busy builder, did he find the time for philatelic and postal history research? Perhaps the time that his hobby's research required was the main cause of his "small bank balance". Any any event, I do not begrudge him being an artisan but I suspect that possibly he was driven to fakery in order to prove to the himself that he was cleverer and more knowledgeable in the field of postal history than all the professional fools around him.
10]. I can find no details of this tragedy which must have left Jurgens and his wife devastated. He created the Barbara Jurgens Trust
11]. The anecdote about Jurgens that we hear most often is how he bribed British soldiers who were burning Cape colonial records on Woodstock beach (during te South African War?) for the chance to go through the 'rubbish' and pick out the best bits. Perhaps this legendary tale had become such common knowledge that the SAP did not want to repeat it.
12]. This article is intended to describe in part why Jurgens has been asked to sign the Roll of Distinguished Philatelists of South Africa. It was published in June 1951 before Roth exposed Jurgens in 1952.
13]. We do not know the reason why Jurgen's was unable to accept the honour of being a Judge at the New York International Exhibition in 1947. One might be forgiven for thinking that because of his "small bank balance" the reason was financial. If that is true, why did Jurgens not make a greater attempt to profit from his dark craft and skullduggery?
While it appears that financial gain was never the prime motive behind his fakery and forgery, there is no doubt that many of his faked covers were sold. According to Douglas Roth, the dealer generally credited with exposing Jurgens' activities, ('Jurgensiana, The SAP, February 1976), "Although there was no positive proof that Jurgens had actually manufactured the fakes there was ample evidence that all the examples then discovered had been sold by him to collectors, and there were a great many of them."
Jurgens - Philatelic Snippets
The first showing of his supposedly unauthorised reprints of Woodblocks in colour is recorded in the SAP (February 1941, Society News, Page 23) in its coverage of a meeting of the Cape Town Philatelic Society.
"Thursday, 28th November, 1940 - Mr A. A. Jurgens tabled his specialised collection of Cape Triangles. Included in this display were three sheets of the woodblock stamps in colour. viz, 1d in carmine and brick-red, and 4d in deep blue. These prints had been made from the original woodblock plates in the possession of the S. A. Museum, Cape Town, by kind permission of the Director, Dr E. L. Gill, to illustrate the woodblock issue in the Barbara Jurgens collection of Cape postal history presented to the S. A. Museum to her memory."
"In moving a vote of thanks, Mr W. L. Ashmead said that the collection could hold its own with that of Mr Lichtenstein's of New York, and Mrs Field. Mr I. Simenhoff said that he had seen Mr Lichtenstein's collection in 1928 at the Durban International Exhibition , and apart from the errors of colour he reckoned that the collection (Jurgens') was as good".
Note: It appears from Mr Simenhoff's comment that Jurgens did not show the Cape Town Philatelic Society meeting his "errors of colour" reprints. Did this spur Jurgens to now go and print some or had he already done so but not displayed them? Note that the pencilled date on the Jurgens' presentation card below is 'NOV 1940', the same month as the meeting.
A. A. Jurgens sent signed presentation cards to selected influential philatelists. In this way he curried favour with the rich and powerful. The card below was sent to the Cape Town City Architect, W. J. H. Gregory. Jurgens had a long and interesting relationship with Gregory whom he thanks in the forward of his book for "the tracing of the Letter Stamps and Post-Marks reproduced in this book".
1940. One of 50 Presentation Card showing Prints from the Original Woodblock Plates.
(Two x 1d and one x 4d reprints made before the final defacement of the printing plates.
An additional 50 Presentation Cards were made with a pair of each value.)
.A. A. Jurgens to W. J. H. Gregory.
According to Roth (The SA Philatelist, February 1976, Page 33), "a leading Cape architect who was quite innocent of any connection with the subsequent frauds" was responsible for blocks of soft metal type being made by the Cape Times from pen and ink drawings copied from originals. After Jurgens book was published "these line blocks , and some not actually used for the book, were handed over to Jurgens and a receipt obtained for them which the writer (Roth) has seen".