Philatelic fakes and forgeries
Encyclopedia
In general, philatelic fakes and forgeries refers to labels that look like postage stamps but are not. Most have been produced to deceive or defraud. Learning to identify these can be a challenging branch of philately
.
To a large extent the definitions below are consistent with those given in the introduction to various recent editions of the Scott Standard Postage Stamp Catalogue. "We use the term "forgery" to indicate stamps produced to defraud collectors (properly known as forgeries) and to defraud stamp-issuing governments (properly known as counterfeits). "Fake" is used to indicate the alteration of a genuine stamp to make it appear as something else. Fakes might refer to cancels, overprints, added or clipped perforations, stamp design alterations, etc." Although some philatelists stick to precise definitions of these terms, one should not assume that this is the case with every writer.
Questions are often raised about when a stamp is legitimately produced for postage. The following quotation may be helpful:
Jean de Sperati
is among the master forgers in the history of philately. The Vancouver Island forgery refers to a stamp that was originally issued in 1865. To produce his forgery, de Sperati bleached a real, cheaper stamp of the same vintage. He then used a process called photolithography
to make an almost perfect copy of the stamp. In his lifetime, Jean de Sperati forged over 500 stamps. He sometimes signed his work in pencil on the back. His forged stamps are now often worth more than the originals.
The earliest forgeries are all postal, and the Penny Black
was the first stamp to be copied already in its first year in 1840. Partial forgery consists of changing colors or changing the numericals of stamps to imitate a higher value stamp. Other tricks consisted of methods to make the marker disappear (chemically erasing, placing a second stamp on it if it just hits a corner. The Spanish Post Office had to change its stamps almost annually between 1850 to 1879 to stay ahead of the forgers.
Notable postal forgeries include:
As a curiosity postal authorities have published their own forgeries, thus the British Post Office forged its own 1d stamps in 1856 to see if its features were fraud-proof.
It may not be possible to distinguish between a philatelic and postal forgery if the stamps are unused merely by looking at them; the techniques utilized in producing them are identical. However, if the stamps bear cancellations, they may be more readily distinguished. If a stamp has a forged cancellation, it necessarily is a philatelic forgery since it was obviously made for sale to collectors, not to be used to send a letter. If the cancellation is genuine, it is likely not a postal forgery, but not necessarily, since sometimes forgers have used genuine cancellation devices to "cancel" forged stamps. A helpful distinction may be to have one of these stamps on an envelope that actually went through the mail, but that too requires caution. Counterfeits that reach the philatelic community are fairly scarce, and that alone makes them more valuable. There is more than enough incentive for an unscrupulous individual to fake a counterfeit usage by applying a philatelic forgery to an envelope!
from Belgium De la falsifications des timbres-poste in 1862. Shortly thereafter Pemberton published Forged Stamps: How to detect them and Robert Brisco Earée
Album Weeds. Stamps produced by famous forgers have become collectibles, as well.
Unlike counterfeits these are very common in collections. Many that were produced in the earliest days of stamp collecting in the 19th century are still plentiful. At that time many considered it quite acceptable to fill a space in an album with a facsimile when the genuine stamp was unavailable. Later, especially in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, massive numbers of stamps were forged for the packet trade, including very common as well as rare stamps, so that the fact that a stamp is common is no guarantee that it is not a philatelic forgery.
Knowledge is an important tool in helping to detect fakes and forgeries. A person who is able to identify some of the most obvious forgeries can save a lot of money in expertising fees, though the information may not yet be enough to establish that a stamp is genuine. Earee's Album Weeds, and Serrane's Vade Mecum are only two books in the vast literature about stamp forgeries.
It has been pointed out that today homemade forgeries can easily reach the market through the internet
.
authorized forging of stamps of Germany
, Bavaria
, and Austro-Hungary in 1918. Ten and 15 pf Germania stamps of Germany were affected but differ in engraving, paper, and water mark from the original. Unused forgeries of the 5, 10, and 25 Austrian heller stamps with the image of Emperor Charles I of Austria are known to exist. These stamps do not carry propaganda messages, and were intended to cause economic damage.
All known German falsifications are propaganda forgeries. Forgeries of the Silver Jubilee issue of 1935 were falsified at the Sachsenhausen concentration camp
by order of Heinrich Himmler during the war. The modifications included the insertion of Jewish and communist emblems, placement of Stalin's head, the inscription that was faulty ("This war is a Jewsh war") and the years altered to 1939-1944. A similar falsification concerned the coronation issue from 1937 in which Stalin's head appears, the star of David is present, as well as an inscription concerning the Tehran conference. A third forgery is different and affects the 1937 series with the head of King George VI. The alterations are very subtle affecting emblems. Six values of the series were falsified. In the short film "Adolph Burger's Historical Artifacts" Sachsenhausen survivor Burger shows examples of some of these stamps that he helped produce. He also describes this in greater detail in his book "The Devil's Workshop"
The first stamps to be forged were the common 6 and 12 pfennig Hitler head stamps that were printed in Rome
by the Office of Strategic Services
in 1944. These stamps were applied to letters containing propaganda, marked with false postmarks (Wien 8, Wien 40, Hannover 1), and distributed by drops from air planes as Operation Cornflakes
.
The US modified the 12 pfennig Hitler head stamp by the insertion of a death head and the inscription "Futsches Reich" (The Reich is gone) replaces "Deutsches Reich". Similarly, the Hitler block from 1937 was altered showing a death head, graves, and gallows; the inscription is "Deutsches Reich 1944". Also, postcards were forged.
Soviet forgeries were limited to postcards with propaganda messages that had imprinted stamp
s.
Great Britain produced forgeries for Germany, France, Italy, Poland (Generalgouvernement
), and French-Morocco during World War II.
Regarding Germany, the first forgery was the 12 pfennig Hindenburg head stamp, later followed by the 3,4,6, and 8 pfennig values, to distribute propaganda material in Germany. Other stamps such as the Hitler heads and some fieldpost stamps may not have reached circulation.
A major effort was the production of propaganda stamps. The Hitler head stamp was modified to depict Heinrich Himmler
Another propaganda forgery concerns the 1943 Hitler putsch stamp that shows General Witzleben
(a participant in the July 20, 1944 Hitler attentat) and is inscribed with "Gehängt am 8. August 1944" (Hanged on ..). Other forgeries affect the welfare stamps from 1938, and the 1944 Hitler putsch stamp.
Regarding France, Britain produced forgeries of the Iris series and of stamp depicting Marshal Philippe Pétain
.
For Italy, Britain produced stamps of the Victor Emmanuel
stamps, as well as propaganda stamps with Hitler and Mussolini inscribed "Due populi, un führer".
Stamps were produced in Great Britain for the Generalgouvernement and utilized by the Polish underground army to distribute propaganda material. The Hitler head stamp of the Generalgouvernement was modified to depict Hans Frank
on the 20 groszy value. These stamps circulated in the postal system.
French-controlled Morocco
received stamps forged by the British authorities that had overprints of "Deutsche Reichspost in Marokko" to create confusion and suggest an imminent German occupation. Few examples are known.
Between 1948 and 1954 the a group founded by Werner Hildebrandt produced anti-communist propaganda including stamps that were used in the postal system of the GDR. The first stamps to get modified were the 12 and 24 pfennig values of the series depicting the President of the GDR Wilhelm Pieck
that showed a noose and the inscription "Undeutsche Undemokratische Diktatur" (un-German un-democratic dictatorship). Other changes were made to the stamps of the Five-Year-Plan. The group also modified production instructions to factories that caused economic damage.
They are generally issued to deceive collectors. Among these are the issues for South Moluccas when Henry Stolow
printed the Maluku Selatan stamps, and the uninhabited Scottish island of Staffa
. The 1923 famine relief stamps of Azerbaijan were bogus, but these too were also subsequently forged.
. The stamps of New Atlantis required the construction of a bamboo raft that would be floated in the Atlantic as the country.
and Lundy
.' Those two, it would seem, are considered thoroughly legitimate." The legitimacy arises from the fact that these islands did not have official post offices, and a private service needed to be established to transport mail to the mainland. More often, however, a person should be wary of local issues which find a market with tourists and unwary collectors.
Modern electronic techniques would appear to make things easier for the forger, but understanding how different printing methods work can be very helpful in discovering these forgeries. Recently Peter Winter
from Germany used modern technology to produce convincing reproductions which were then sold on as genuine by unscrupulous persons.
One would imagine that overprints should be easier for a forger to falsify. It is just a simple matter of applying a few letters to a stamp with black ink. Paying attention to detail can reward a philatelic sleuth. The stamps of Bangkok from the 1880s were produced by overprinting each stamp a single letter "B" on stamps of the Straits Settlements. Some of these overprints are bogus because they are on underlying stamps that were never known to have been issued with that overprint. Forgeries can be discovered by examining the relative heights of the two loops of the B.
Another example, from New Zealand
, is four stamps overprinted for an industrial exhibition held in Auckland in 1913. The accompanying image shows genuine overprints, and forged overprints from an internet auction. A New Zealand dealer prices a set of postally used stamps with genuine overprints at NZD
1600, while the same four stamps, postally used without the overprint, are priced at NZD 8. This indicates the potentially lucrative payoff for forgers.
In another example the 1948 Gandhi stamps of India were overprinted with the single word "SERVICE" to produce a stamp for official government use. The key to knowing the difference between the two is based on recognizing the difference between a typographed and a lithographed overprint. The former will leave an impression in the paper which can be detected by looking at the back of the stamp.
It is possible to test for regumming by running your finger along the perforations. On a genuinely gummed stamp, the perforations will feel soft; on a regummed stamp, the perforations will feel rough to the touch, indicating that gum has been placed on the stamp after perforation.
It is also important to know that not all cancellations are postal. Some countries have inscribed their stamps "Postage and Revenue". Some very high face values on such stamps could not reasonably have been used for postage, thus making any kind of proper postal usage exceedingly rare. More commonly these high face values were for fiscal usages to indicate the payment of taxes on real estate or corporate shares. While such cancellations are not fakes, they can easily be misrepresented to the unwary as the more valuable postal cancellations. Rainer Blüm
was sentenced recently in a high-profile German legal case for forgery of postmarks to increase the value of stamps.
Philately
Philately is the study of stamps and postal history and other related items. Philately involves more than just stamp collecting, which does not necessarily involve the study of stamps. It is possible to be a philatelist without owning any stamps...
.
To a large extent the definitions below are consistent with those given in the introduction to various recent editions of the Scott Standard Postage Stamp Catalogue. "We use the term "forgery" to indicate stamps produced to defraud collectors (properly known as forgeries) and to defraud stamp-issuing governments (properly known as counterfeits). "Fake" is used to indicate the alteration of a genuine stamp to make it appear as something else. Fakes might refer to cancels, overprints, added or clipped perforations, stamp design alterations, etc." Although some philatelists stick to precise definitions of these terms, one should not assume that this is the case with every writer.
Questions are often raised about when a stamp is legitimately produced for postage. The following quotation may be helpful:
History of philatelic fakes and forgeries
The first postage stamp was issued in Great Britain in 1840, and by the early 1860s or earlier the first postage stamp forgery -- in the sense of a stamp created to fool philatelists into thinking that it is a genuine one—appeared on the market. By 1863 forgeries were so common that the book Forged Stamps: How to Detect Them was published and by 1864, forgeries were being produced of both common and scarce stamps from a wide range of issuing countries such as Austria, British Guiana, Finland, India and Spain.Jean de Sperati
Jean de Sperati
Jean de Sperati was among the most noted stamp forgers of the world. Even professional stamp authenticators of his time attested to the genuineness of his stamps...
is among the master forgers in the history of philately. The Vancouver Island forgery refers to a stamp that was originally issued in 1865. To produce his forgery, de Sperati bleached a real, cheaper stamp of the same vintage. He then used a process called photolithography
Photolithography
Photolithography is a process used in microfabrication to selectively remove parts of a thin film or the bulk of a substrate. It uses light to transfer a geometric pattern from a photomask to a light-sensitive chemical "photoresist", or simply "resist," on the substrate...
to make an almost perfect copy of the stamp. In his lifetime, Jean de Sperati forged over 500 stamps. He sometimes signed his work in pencil on the back. His forged stamps are now often worth more than the originals.
Classification
Stamp-like objects, not all of which are really fakes and forgeries, are described below for the sake of developing a better understanding of such claims.Postal forgeries or counterfeits
Those who produce counterfeits appeal to a very different market than philatelists. They depend on their stamps being produced in large quantities in order to be able to recover their investment. The person who would use them must feel that he can purchase them for a price that is significantly lower than what he would pay at a legitimate post office. This makes the most common current stamp used for everyday mailing a prime target for counterfeiting activity.The earliest forgeries are all postal, and the Penny Black
Penny Black
The Penny Black was the world's first adhesive postage stamp used in a public postal system. It was issued in Britain on 1 May 1840, for official use from 6 May of that year....
was the first stamp to be copied already in its first year in 1840. Partial forgery consists of changing colors or changing the numericals of stamps to imitate a higher value stamp. Other tricks consisted of methods to make the marker disappear (chemically erasing, placing a second stamp on it if it just hits a corner. The Spanish Post Office had to change its stamps almost annually between 1850 to 1879 to stay ahead of the forgers.
Notable postal forgeries include:
- France: 20c (1870), 15c (1886), sower 25c (1923)
- Germany: 10pf (1902), 10pf (1909)
- Great Britain: 1s (1872), 4d World Cup Winners (1966)England Winners stampThe England Winners stamp was a fourpenny commemorative stamp issued in 1966 to mark England's victory in the 1966 World Cup. The stamp was issued on the orders of the then Postmaster General Edward Short and created by a new printing of the lowest value of the three British 1966 World Cup stamps...
- Australia: 2d Sydney Harbour Bridge (1932)
- USA: 13c Liberty Bell (1980)
As a curiosity postal authorities have published their own forgeries, thus the British Post Office forged its own 1d stamps in 1856 to see if its features were fraud-proof.
Protective measures
Postal services developed early on measures to protect the integrity of their stamps. Some of these steps are similar as used to protects against forged currency. Major steps include:- Watermarks
- Special paperPostage stamp paperPostage stamp paper is the foundation or substrate of the postage stamp to which the ink for the stamp's design is applied to one side and the adhesive is applied to the other...
- Delicate engraving
- Printing methods
- Special ink for post marks
- Insertion of silk threads
- Secret marks either visible or invisible to the microscope
- Re-issue of stamps
It may not be possible to distinguish between a philatelic and postal forgery if the stamps are unused merely by looking at them; the techniques utilized in producing them are identical. However, if the stamps bear cancellations, they may be more readily distinguished. If a stamp has a forged cancellation, it necessarily is a philatelic forgery since it was obviously made for sale to collectors, not to be used to send a letter. If the cancellation is genuine, it is likely not a postal forgery, but not necessarily, since sometimes forgers have used genuine cancellation devices to "cancel" forged stamps. A helpful distinction may be to have one of these stamps on an envelope that actually went through the mail, but that too requires caution. Counterfeits that reach the philatelic community are fairly scarce, and that alone makes them more valuable. There is more than enough incentive for an unscrupulous individual to fake a counterfeit usage by applying a philatelic forgery to an envelope!
Philatelic forgeries
Soon after their introduction, stamps became philatelic objects, and stamp forgery to the detriment of the collector became a problem. The first book about the topic was written by Jean-Baptiste MoensJean-Baptiste Moëns
Jean-Baptiste Philippe Constant Moens was a Belgian philatelist recognized as the first dealer in stamps for collectors. He was one of the original philatelic journalists.- Youth :...
from Belgium De la falsifications des timbres-poste in 1862. Shortly thereafter Pemberton published Forged Stamps: How to detect them and Robert Brisco Earée
Robert Brisco Earée
The Reverend Robert Brisco Earée was an English philatelist, known for his studies of philatelic fakes and forgeries. He was the son of the Reverend William Earee M.A.- Life :...
Album Weeds. Stamps produced by famous forgers have become collectibles, as well.
Unlike counterfeits these are very common in collections. Many that were produced in the earliest days of stamp collecting in the 19th century are still plentiful. At that time many considered it quite acceptable to fill a space in an album with a facsimile when the genuine stamp was unavailable. Later, especially in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, massive numbers of stamps were forged for the packet trade, including very common as well as rare stamps, so that the fact that a stamp is common is no guarantee that it is not a philatelic forgery.
Fakes
Fakes begin with a genuine stamp and alter it in some way to make it more valuable to stamp collectors. When catalogues show different varieties with significantly different values that can be great motivation to alter the cheap example into something that can be sold for great profit. Sometimes only minor changes can affect the apparent valuation of a stamp.Knowledge is an important tool in helping to detect fakes and forgeries. A person who is able to identify some of the most obvious forgeries can save a lot of money in expertising fees, though the information may not yet be enough to establish that a stamp is genuine. Earee's Album Weeds, and Serrane's Vade Mecum are only two books in the vast literature about stamp forgeries.
Expertising stamps as protection
As an expert can falsify stamps often quite easily, it is advisable particularly when dealing with stamps of value to have them examined and expertised. Such experts are highly specialized and generally focused on a selected philatelic area. Falsified stamps may be marked as such, while a genuine stamp of value should receive a certificate of authenticity by a reputable authority.It has been pointed out that today homemade forgeries can easily reach the market through the internet
Internet
The Internet is a global system of interconnected computer networks that use the standard Internet protocol suite to serve billions of users worldwide...
.
Government and propaganda forgeries
Political and propaganda forgery is produced by countries in conflict to hurt the opponent. Stamps may be issued to deprive the enemy of revenue, to distribute propaganda material, to cause confusion, and to depict propaganda messages. Propaganda stamps are very collectable and have been philatelically forged: a forgery of a forgery. Many propaganda stamps would have been difficult to circulate in the postal system because they would have been immediately removed, thus used propaganda stamps are unusual (but easily falsified).World War I
During World War I the United KingdomUnited Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
authorized forging of stamps of Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
, Bavaria
Bavaria
Bavaria, formally the Free State of Bavaria is a state of Germany, located in the southeast of Germany. With an area of , it is the largest state by area, forming almost 20% of the total land area of Germany...
, and Austro-Hungary in 1918. Ten and 15 pf Germania stamps of Germany were affected but differ in engraving, paper, and water mark from the original. Unused forgeries of the 5, 10, and 25 Austrian heller stamps with the image of Emperor Charles I of Austria are known to exist. These stamps do not carry propaganda messages, and were intended to cause economic damage.
German forgeries for the United Kingdom
Sachsenhausen concentration camp
Sachsenhausen or Sachsenhausen-Oranienburg was a Nazi concentration camp in Oranienburg, Germany, used primarily for political prisoners from 1936 to the end of the Third Reich in May, 1945. After World War II, when Oranienburg was in the Soviet Occupation Zone, the structure was used as an NKVD...
by order of Heinrich Himmler during the war. The modifications included the insertion of Jewish and communist emblems, placement of Stalin's head, the inscription that was faulty ("This war is a Jewsh war") and the years altered to 1939-1944. A similar falsification concerned the coronation issue from 1937 in which Stalin's head appears, the star of David is present, as well as an inscription concerning the Tehran conference. A third forgery is different and affects the 1937 series with the head of King George VI. The alterations are very subtle affecting emblems. Six values of the series were falsified. In the short film "Adolph Burger's Historical Artifacts" Sachsenhausen survivor Burger shows examples of some of these stamps that he helped produce. He also describes this in greater detail in his book "The Devil's Workshop"
United States forgeries for Germany
Rome
Rome is the capital of Italy and the country's largest and most populated city and comune, with over 2.7 million residents in . The city is located in the central-western portion of the Italian Peninsula, on the Tiber River within the Lazio region of Italy.Rome's history spans two and a half...
by the Office of Strategic Services
Office of Strategic Services
The Office of Strategic Services was a United States intelligence agency formed during World War II. It was the wartime intelligence agency, and it was a predecessor of the Central Intelligence Agency...
in 1944. These stamps were applied to letters containing propaganda, marked with false postmarks (Wien 8, Wien 40, Hannover 1), and distributed by drops from air planes as Operation Cornflakes
Operation Cornflakes
Operation Cornflakes was a World War II Office of Strategic Services PSYOP mission in 1944 and 1945 which involved tricking the German postal service Deutsche Reichspost into inadvertently delivering anti-Nazi propaganda to German citizens through mail....
.
The US modified the 12 pfennig Hitler head stamp by the insertion of a death head and the inscription "Futsches Reich" (The Reich is gone) replaces "Deutsches Reich". Similarly, the Hitler block from 1937 was altered showing a death head, graves, and gallows; the inscription is "Deutsches Reich 1944". Also, postcards were forged.
Soviet forgeries for Germany
Soviet forgeries were limited to postcards with propaganda messages that had imprinted stamp
Imprinted stamp
In philately an imprinted stamp is a stamp printed on to a piece of postal stationery such as a stamped envelope, postal card, letter sheet, letter card, aerogram or wrapper. The printing is flat upon the surface of the paper, as opposed to an embossed stamp which has a raised relief...
s.
British forgeries
Great Britain produced forgeries for Germany, France, Italy, Poland (Generalgouvernement
General Government
The General Government was an area of Second Republic of Poland under Nazi German rule during World War II; designated as a separate region of the Third Reich between 1939–1945...
), and French-Morocco during World War II.
Regarding Germany, the first forgery was the 12 pfennig Hindenburg head stamp, later followed by the 3,4,6, and 8 pfennig values, to distribute propaganda material in Germany. Other stamps such as the Hitler heads and some fieldpost stamps may not have reached circulation.
A major effort was the production of propaganda stamps. The Hitler head stamp was modified to depict Heinrich Himmler
Heinrich Himmler
Heinrich Luitpold Himmler was Reichsführer of the SS, a military commander, and a leading member of the Nazi Party. As Chief of the German Police and the Minister of the Interior from 1943, Himmler oversaw all internal and external police and security forces, including the Gestapo...
Erwin von Witzleben
Job-Wilhelm Georg Erdmann Erwin von Witzleben was a German army officer and in the Second World War an Army commander and a conspirator in the July 20 Plot.-Early years:...
(a participant in the July 20, 1944 Hitler attentat) and is inscribed with "Gehängt am 8. August 1944" (Hanged on ..). Other forgeries affect the welfare stamps from 1938, and the 1944 Hitler putsch stamp.
Regarding France, Britain produced forgeries of the Iris series and of stamp depicting Marshal Philippe Pétain
Philippe Pétain
Henri Philippe Benoni Omer Joseph Pétain , generally known as Philippe Pétain or Marshal Pétain , was a French general who reached the distinction of Marshal of France, and was later Chief of State of Vichy France , from 1940 to 1944...
.
For Italy, Britain produced stamps of the Victor Emmanuel
Victor Emmanuel III of Italy
Victor Emmanuel III was a member of the House of Savoy and King of Italy . In addition, he claimed the crowns of Ethiopia and Albania and claimed the titles Emperor of Ethiopia and King of Albania , which were unrecognised by the Great Powers...
stamps, as well as propaganda stamps with Hitler and Mussolini inscribed "Due populi, un führer".
Stamps were produced in Great Britain for the Generalgouvernement and utilized by the Polish underground army to distribute propaganda material. The Hitler head stamp of the Generalgouvernement was modified to depict Hans Frank
Hans Frank
Hans Michael Frank was a German lawyer who worked for the Nazi party during the 1920s and 1930s and later became a high-ranking official in Nazi Germany...
on the 20 groszy value. These stamps circulated in the postal system.
French-controlled Morocco
Morocco
Morocco , officially the Kingdom of Morocco , is a country located in North Africa. It has a population of more than 32 million and an area of 710,850 km², and also primarily administers the disputed region of the Western Sahara...
received stamps forged by the British authorities that had overprints of "Deutsche Reichspost in Marokko" to create confusion and suggest an imminent German occupation. Few examples are known.
West Berlin for the GDR
Between 1948 and 1954 the a group founded by Werner Hildebrandt produced anti-communist propaganda including stamps that were used in the postal system of the GDR. The first stamps to get modified were the 12 and 24 pfennig values of the series depicting the President of the GDR Wilhelm Pieck
Wilhelm Pieck
Friedrich Wilhelm Reinhold Pieck was a German politician and a Communist. In 1949, he became the first President of the German Democratic Republic, an office abolished upon his death. He was succeeded by Walter Ulbricht, who served as Chairman of the Council of States.-Biography:Pieck was born to...
that showed a noose and the inscription "Undeutsche Undemokratische Diktatur" (un-German un-democratic dictatorship). Other changes were made to the stamps of the Five-Year-Plan. The group also modified production instructions to factories that caused economic damage.
Official reprints
Official reprints of stamps that are no longer valid for postage are usually produced by governments to meet a philatelic demand. Scott numbers 3 and 4 of the United States were produced in this way. This also happened with several early sets of the Peoples' Republic of China.Remainders
Remainders are surplus stocks of legitimate postage stamps that have been put into the philatelic market after being demonetized. Among these are the later stamps of Nova Scotia, before it became a province of Canada, and the German inflationary period stamps. One effect of distributing large quantities of remaindered stamps to the public is that used stamps can be much more valuable than mint ones.Bogus stamps
Bogus stamps are pretended, fictitious stamps which purport to be produced by an entity that exists and could have produced them, but didn't. A bogus stamp is not a forgery because it never really existed. It does not even resemble anything that the entity did produce, and only rarely are any of these labels ever shipped to the place that is shown as issuing them. The term also refers to an actual stamp which bears the sham addition of an unauthorized surcharge or overprint.They are generally issued to deceive collectors. Among these are the issues for South Moluccas when Henry Stolow
Henry Stolow
Henry Stolow was a stamp dealer in Berlin, New York, and Munich who was behind the issue of numerous stamps of doubtful vailidity.-Early life:...
printed the Maluku Selatan stamps, and the uninhabited Scottish island of Staffa
Staffa
Staffa from the Old Norse for stave or pillar island, is an island of the Inner Hebrides in Argyll and Bute, Scotland. The Vikings gave it this name as its columnar basalt reminded them of their houses, which were built from vertically placed tree-logs....
. The 1923 famine relief stamps of Azerbaijan were bogus, but these too were also subsequently forged.
Fantasies
Fantasies claim to be issued by places that don't even exist. One of the most famous of these were "King" Charles-Marie David de Mayréna's for SedangSedang
Sedang may refer to* Sedang people, a people in Vietnam* Kingdom of Sedang, a defunct nineteenth-century kingdom in Indochina...
. The stamps of New Atlantis required the construction of a bamboo raft that would be floated in the Atlantic as the country.
Local stamps
Local stamps are usually intended to serve a local purpose, and are not necessarily fraudulent. Thus we have in relation to the Great Britain: "... there were two local entities that 'performed much in the way of postal service ... HermHerm
Herm is the smallest of the Channel Islands that is open to the public and is part of the Bailiwick of Guernsey. Cars are banned from the small island just like its Channel Island neighbour, Sark. Unlike Sark, bicycles are also banned...
and Lundy
Lundy
Lundy is the largest island in the Bristol Channel, lying off the coast of Devon, England, approximately one third of the distance across the channel between England and Wales. It measures about at its widest. Lundy gives its name to a British sea area and is one of the islands of England.As of...
.' Those two, it would seem, are considered thoroughly legitimate." The legitimacy arises from the fact that these islands did not have official post offices, and a private service needed to be established to transport mail to the mainland. More often, however, a person should be wary of local issues which find a market with tourists and unwary collectors.
Cinderellas
Cinderellas is a broad term for just about anything that looks like a postage stamp but isn't. While the term includes bogus stamps and fantasies, it also includes many fund raising labels, Christmas seals, and other stickers that were produced for legitimate purposes.Entire forgeries
This is the most obvious way of producing forgeries, and as such is self-evident. The forger starts from scratch, and completely re-engraves the plate. It is virtually impossible to produce a new engraving that will be identical to the original. Thus, in the earliest set of Hong Kong stamps the forgeries can be distinguished by counting the number of shading lines in the background. Some early Japanese forgeries are distinguished by remembering that the chrysanthemum crest in the stamp should always have 16 petals.Modern electronic techniques would appear to make things easier for the forger, but understanding how different printing methods work can be very helpful in discovering these forgeries. Recently Peter Winter
Peter Winter (philately)
Peter Winter is a stamp reproducer. He was also trained as an opera singer.- The "reproductions" :In the early 1980s he offered "50 of the most valuable and significant stamps, authentically reproduced" and indicated that in order to reproduce these stamps as authentically as possible, he had...
from Germany used modern technology to produce convincing reproductions which were then sold on as genuine by unscrupulous persons.
Forged overprints
Another example, from New Zealand
New Zealand
New Zealand is an island country in the south-western Pacific Ocean comprising two main landmasses and numerous smaller islands. The country is situated some east of Australia across the Tasman Sea, and roughly south of the Pacific island nations of New Caledonia, Fiji, and Tonga...
, is four stamps overprinted for an industrial exhibition held in Auckland in 1913. The accompanying image shows genuine overprints, and forged overprints from an internet auction. A New Zealand dealer prices a set of postally used stamps with genuine overprints at NZD
New Zealand dollar
The New Zealand dollar is the currency of New Zealand. It also circulates in the Cook Islands , Niue, Tokelau, and the Pitcairn Islands. It is divided into 100 cents....
1600, while the same four stamps, postally used without the overprint, are priced at NZD 8. This indicates the potentially lucrative payoff for forgers.
In another example the 1948 Gandhi stamps of India were overprinted with the single word "SERVICE" to produce a stamp for official government use. The key to knowing the difference between the two is based on recognizing the difference between a typographed and a lithographed overprint. The former will leave an impression in the paper which can be detected by looking at the back of the stamp.
Reperforating
In some cases a valuable and a common variety of a stamp differ only by the presence or size of the perforations. Thus perforations are cut off to make a stamp appear imperforate, or new perforations are carefully cut into the stamp. When considering this possibility it is important to consider whether the stamp has been made smaller than it should be, or whether the perforations come together at the corners as they should with a comb or harrow perforated stamp.Regumming
Although this is controversial, many collectors believe that a mint stamp is more valuable when the gum has been undisturbed. There are many fakers who are happy to accommodate them so that they can receive a premium price for a mint-never-hinged stamp. Not all expertisers are willing to give an opinion on this kind of fakery. If you suspect that a stamp has been regummed look to see if the gum has the right colour. Some stamps should have scoring lines which seem to be defects, but are really there to prevent the sheet of stamps from curling. Examine the perforations closely; genuine gum is normally put on stamps before they are perforated so that gum that flows into the perforations may be a sign of being faked. There are situations where the original gum should have been washed off; bright fresh gum on the 1933 WIPA souvenir sheet of Austria would probably be false since the acidic nature of the original gum would cause the paper to deteriorate.It is possible to test for regumming by running your finger along the perforations. On a genuinely gummed stamp, the perforations will feel soft; on a regummed stamp, the perforations will feel rough to the touch, indicating that gum has been placed on the stamp after perforation.
Repairs
In some cases the value of a damaged stamp can be enhanced by repairing the damage. This is also considered faking. Sometimes this can be detected by making sure that the right kind of paper is on the back of the stamp, or by putting the stamp in watermark fluid.Colour changes
The colour of a stamp can be changed by exposing the stamp to various chemicals, or by leaving it out in bright sunlight. Carefully applied chemicals can also be used to remove specific colours to produce "rare" missing colour varieties.False postmarks
For a beginner it appears self-evident that a bright new unused postage stamp is worth more than one that has been soiled by a cancellation. This is not always true. There are many instances of stamps that have been produced in large quantities, but where comparatively very small numbers have done postage service. Huge quantities of mint stamps can be left over after a bout of inflation, a political overthrow or loss of a war. In some cases a genuine stamp can have a fake cancellation applied to make it appear to be a rare, and valuable postally used example. To identify these fakes it is important to understand the postmarks that were in use at the time, and to make sure that the date is consistent with proper usage, or that the cancelling post office existed during the time the stamp was in proper use.It is also important to know that not all cancellations are postal. Some countries have inscribed their stamps "Postage and Revenue". Some very high face values on such stamps could not reasonably have been used for postage, thus making any kind of proper postal usage exceedingly rare. More commonly these high face values were for fiscal usages to indicate the payment of taxes on real estate or corporate shares. While such cancellations are not fakes, they can easily be misrepresented to the unwary as the more valuable postal cancellations. Rainer Blüm
Rainer Blüm
Rainer Blüm is a German citizen from Bensheim who has pleaded guilty to producing and selling forged philatelic material, including cancellations and expertizing certifications....
was sentenced recently in a high-profile German legal case for forgery of postmarks to increase the value of stamps.
Cancelled-to-order
Technically "C.T.O."s are not fakes since they have been cancelled by the stamp issuing authority. Many of these are easily identified because while they have been postmarked they still retain their original gum. Some postal authorities cancel them and sell them at a considerable discount to the philatelic community. The authorities can do that profitably because they no longer need to provide the postal services that the stamps were meant to pay for. Many collectors are more interested in stamps that have been correctly used, and the corresponding used stamp may often be worth more than a mint stamp. Authorities who do this tend to use the same canceller for all C.T.O.s, and apply it very neatly in the corner of four stamps at one time.See also
- Illegal stampsIllegal stampsIllegal stamps are postage stamp-like labels issued in the names of existing independent countries or territories used to defraud postal administrations, stamp collectors, and the general public. Often, but not always, a member nation of the Universal Postal Union will have asked the UPU to issue...
- List of stamp forgers
- Philatelic expertisationPhilatelic expertisationPhilatelic expertisation is the process whereby an expert is asked to give an opinion whether a philatelic item is genuine and whether it has been repaired or altered in any way....
- Russian philatelic forgeriesRussian Philatelic ForgeriesRussian stamps have been extensively forged. Both rare and common stamps have been forged and certain stamps, for instance those of the Army of the North, are more common forged than genuine.- Forgeries of Russian stamps :...
External links
- Propaganda and Espionage Philately by SGM Herbert A. Friedman (Ret.)
- Detecting the Truth: Fakes, Forgeries and Trickery. Library and Archives Canada.
- Propaganda stamps showing originals and forgeries in pictures, retrieved 04-12-2008
- Fakes and forgeries: cull them or collect them? by Rick Miller, Linn's Stamp News