1870 German Occupation War stamps forgeries?

I was at a stamp fair on Saturday and while looking at a dealers French stock he showed me 6 stamps printed for the German occupation during the war of 1870. I have seen these before but he was convinced they are forgeries. This was based on the fact that the album he had them in was owned by someone who knew their stuff and they had put little crosses next to them to denote their "dodginess".

Since I know next to nothing about these stamps and since they were cheap I bought them all and now I wonder what should I be looking at to see if they are genuine or not? A scan is attached and help any help is appreciated.

I am being very lazy on this since I haven't even looked at any of my catalogues to sort it out myself!

:whistle:

I am assuming you have the Hamburg reprints so the following extract from www.dcstamps.com may be useful:-

"Official imitations of all values were made in 1885 in Hamburg. Imitations are of the network down variety and since new plates were made for the text, the easiest way to distinguish imitations is as follows: Draw an imaginary line from the upper left corner of the rectangular border to the lower right corner. The line should pass through the lower part of the ‘P‘ (on the genuine stamp), while on reprints it will pass just below the center of the ‘P’."

Thanks for the fantastic advice. It turns out that some are reprints and some are not! I love it when I get a bargain!