Fancy Cancel Devil/Pitchfork. Is it real or is it Memorex?

It's actually legit. At least the cover, anyway.

Whether it's really worth $1250, that's a different issue. The last I'm aware, it was sold for $300 about 2 years ago by a major auction house. Is it really worth 4x two years later? That would be a matter of opinion. And the person who pays $1250 for it will be the winner of the opinion contest (along with the seller, of course).

The seller is a well-established dealer, long-time advertiser in philatelic magazines.

It's clearly a philatelic cover (my opinion), not something that was available/promoted to the general public. It's a novelty, but the big postal history bucks/interest tends to go to general consumer/commercial covers/usage. It is listed in Loso-deWindt.

There's another version from Devils Fork, WV -- a devil with pitchfork standing, magenta ink.

Yes, exact same cover was sold through a major auction house. I'll get the link and PM to you.

It was made with cooperation of postal clerk. So it is genuine. I don't know the history of whether the postal clerk actually made the cancel, or it was offered by a sender and the postal clerk was cooperative. Lots of postal clerks in days gone by, were "cooperative". Now, postal clerks mostly just want you out of their sight or not talking to them.

But yeah, I'm of the personal opinion that cover is philatelic favor-cancelled, rather than available to the general public like the POD/USPS sanctioned station/special/commemorative cancels.

It's listed in Loso-deWindt. The seller's statement that it is only the 2nd such cover he has ever seen doesn't mean much. The cover was already known to exist since Loso-deWindt came out in the 1950s. There's lots of stamps/covers that I and other collectors/dealers have never seen. Any statement regarding "haven't seen before" is just salesmanship.

The Hellgate and Devils Fork fancy cancels are the only ones that I'm aware of with devil+pitchfork. Not to say there aren't others. I just haven't seen others before -- and I'm not selling anything!

Here's the front and back...