Fake Common Designs
Beginning in 1941, the manager of the Hobby Shop in the Sibley, Lindsay & Curr department store in Rochester, New York generated covers with a distinct style of cachet and applied fake postmarks to some of them. It is important to understand that many Hobby Shop covers have genuine postmarks. It was only in June, 1941 that the fake postmarks first appeared, and some Hobby Shop covers as late as September, 1941 have genuine postmarks.
There are three different styles of Hobby Shop fake postmarks: CD-3, CD-3a, and CD-3b.
For a full description and complete list of the Hobby Shop postmarks, see the Catalog of United States Naval Postmarks published by the Universal Ship Cancellation Society.
CD-3
For CD-3, the letters "U.S.S." are uniformly and fairly narrowly spaced, and the ends of the killer bars nearest the dial are square.
The following postmark is classified as Fake (CD-3)
CD-3a
CD-3a has the letters "U.S.S." further apart and the right-most "S" next to the top killer bar. The ends of the top and bottom killer bars are slanted to match the curve of the dial. The killer bars are closer to the dial in some versions of this style than others
The following postmark is classified as Fake (CD-3a)
CD-3b
CD-3b has a square dial and usually has an eagle between the dial and the bars. It is also seen with an open star, an open numeral "2" and the open letter "E" between the dial and the bars.
The following postmark is classified as Fake (CD-3b, "Eagle")
The following postmark is classified as Fake (CD-3b, "Star")
The following postmark is classified as Fake (CD-3b, "2")
The following postmark is classified as Fake (CD-3b, "E")
Hobby Shop Cachet
The following is a sample of the cachet style used on all covers generated by the Hobby Shop.
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