Fake covers of the Nikolaevsk-on-Amur issue

In the past I have made no secret of my disdain for the so-called Nikolaevsk-on-Amur issue. Briefly, I believe the issue to have been concocted by stamp speculators, and never to have seen use in NNA itself. "Remainders" of the issue (i.e. all of it) were sold in Vladivostok as late as 1922.
Every now and then a faked cover of this issue appears at auction. There was a prize specimen in the 1983 Rand auction, and I've seen one at Delcampe as well. Recently I was able to add one to my reference collection for about $50, which seems about right for a curio like this. Here it is:

You can write a whole list of things that are wrong with this cover from the front alone. Let's see:

• Wrong rate
• Nikolaevsk postmark in Soviet spelling (a backdated Soviet postmark perhaps?)
• Vladivostok "g" used as arrival marking on an unregistered letter
• Address written in Soviet spelling as well
• And of course, the whole cover is far too clean for this period.

It gets even better when you see the reverse:

A ship postmark from a very scarce line used as a transit marking? Except this particular postmark has never been seen on anything except these fake covers...

I'll add that the Vladivostok "g" postmark was used extensively for backdated covers. Judging from its state of wear, these strikes are from 1923 or later: in 1921 this postmark looked a lot cleaner.

As desperately poor as these faked covers are (and there are at least 3 of them in existence), they're masterpieces compared to this nonsense:

which was offered by Gaertner a few years ago. How wrong can you get?

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