Category:Fakes, Forgeries and Counterfeits
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Introduction - The Vision
As I have grown in this wonderful hobby of ours, I have learned one sad truth... many collections are full of album weeds. By this, I mean that there are many fakes, forgeries and counterfeits out there that can easily deceive collectors, novice and experts alike. Even worse is when they are offered up for sale as genuine stamps. Although no reputable dealer would knowingly post a forgery or fake without clearly identifying it as such (at least, I should hope not!), these things do indeed slip by. The first step in preventing this, however, is education! I have searched for good websites to help me identify and verify suspected forgeries and have added links I have found on the links page below, but I never quite find what I'm looking for. I've always wished for a single on-line reference source that was complete (with both expensive and inexpensive stamp varieties), but who has time for such a massive project? Well, perhaps all of our combined efforts could make it happen!
When the StampWants staff announced the new Wiki format for help and articles, I immediately had a vision of a great way to share all of our little bits of knowledge into a single, consolidated editable online reference library for fakes and forgeries (both confirmed and suspected). The purpose of this project is for all interested members of StampWants to be able to post and describe the known and suspected forgeries you have identified in your collections, and to share them so that everyone else might learn something about them, provide feedback on them, and more importantly... learn how to identify them and weed them out. The goal is to have a well organized virtual library/reference collection organized by country where users can post pictures, descriptions, and arguments for and against identification of the stamp as a fake or forgery.
This site is, of course, not a substitute for professional expertization. Please take everything you see and read in here with a grain of salt. But all too often, the stamps you are trying to research are not worth enough to bother with formal expertization, or maybe you don't have the desire or wherewithall to drive to the APS library to view their reference collection. If nothing else, though, maybe you can learn something, or help enlighten others!
Everyone is encouraged to participate in this endeavor, and any help in organizing the site in a user-friendly and easy-to-search format would be greatly appreciated!
StampWants' policies towards posting known/suspected fakes and forgeries
tbd, Mark?
For now, please refer to the site terms and conditions.
View/Edit the Virtual Reference Collection of Fakes, Forgeries and Counterfeits
- Batum
- British Post Offices in Crete
- Canal Zone
- North Borneo
- St. Christopher
- St. Helena
- Transvaal
- United States
- Venezuela
- Western Australia
I believe I have a forgery. What should I do with it?
- Mark the back with "Faux" or "Facsimile"? What do you think?
- Sell it? How do you do it appropriately?
- Donate to the APS?
External Links
- Comparative Philatelic Forgery Identification Site
- Stamp Forgery Guide
- APS Code of Ethics
- SCADS (Stamp Collectors Against Dodgy Sellers) Reference Site
- US Postal Counterfeits
Articles in category "Fakes, Forgeries and Counterfeits"
There are 10 articles in this category.
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