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I agree, anyone who is SERIOUS about collecting stamps shouldn't be wasting their money on this FAKE RUBBISH. It's like buying a Black Belt in KARATE without actually earning it.

Darrin.

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Visit my Website - http://WWW.DJMSTAMPS.COM for Australia & World Stamps, Collections and Accessories

The title of this thread should be changed from

I am selling forgeries, am I bad?

to

I am making forgeries, am I bad?

David B.

Removed from the market by all means but not destroyed.

They should be kept as a reference so future generations have this information at hand because they're sure as heck gonna need it.

Cheers,

Robert

That is the difference in mindsets..of a pure collector and a Dealer. While a collector is horrified at the very thought of these "high quality" fakes and originals because all the collector wants is to derive pleasure out of simply gazing at his collection. The Dealer on the other hand is normally bothered only about the short interval that he gets a copy and then sells it off at a higher price (whether as genuine or as fake) for his own profit. Here the motive is different.

Then there are dealer/collectors like Glen and many others, who are equally repulsed by fakes and forgeries and might not want to associate themselves with such acts at all.

Thanks and regards.

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Robert,

spot on,

I wonder if anyone would have a clue how many self made forgeries have been offered on Ebay since it started, most probably there have been 100's of peddlers of their own wares, luckily in the early days the results were poor looking, poorly produced, poorly perforated however with the advances in cheap technology of the last few years there will be 100's more forgers and no one will be able to keep track of them or their fakes,

I collect Niger Coast and there is a seller now listing many self made forgeries which look very good, these will easily fool most collectors including some experienced ones. He has used genuine GB stamps and added rare cancels. I have reported them on at least 20 occasions to no avail.

David B.

I promised that i will not provide link to shop, so i will NOT. I bet you will find it by yourself easily.
P.S.: I can say price for it only if admins allow it, because it should be seen as a ads.

Even THINK about it, and you are an ex-member.

Originally I did not want to get involved in this thread, but there a couple of issues here - as I see it.

Reproductions of an issue - with or without qualifyers - MUST BE SEEN by anyone as suspect by anyone who *might* be seen as a potential buyer.

To Mr. Shareman.....or any others of his ilk; there is a very fine line between the philanthropy dictating generous offers to collectors: and TRUTH in advertising.

By the way.....do you really believe that the feather-heads that inhabit the internet are really as brainless as you would like them to be

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FORESTS OLD, PASTURES NEW
(An expert is one who knows more and more, about less and less)

I like looking at my collection, I enjoy the research that goes with it, the investigation of background to postal history. You don't get to be 40 years a collector without that. And no, I haven't gone over to the dark side to become just a dealer. Some say you can't be both.
But I also like to look at forgeries and compare them with the originals; it's a good way to learn about methods of printing, and methods of forging.

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Ian Billings - Norvic Philatelics GB stamps info: http://www.norphil.co.uk - also /catalog for our ecommerce site, blog.norphil.co.uk, shop.norphil.co.uk and Ian_norvic on twitter

There are some things that have not been raised to date, which I think are worth a bit of thought.

Firstly to Shareman, why put "copy" or whatever on your stamps AFTER they have been gummed, rather than before? If you put "copy" on after, the gum can be soaked off and the "copy" will not be evident on the back of the stamp, reducing the chance that it could ever be resold as an original. If you put "copy" on before gumming, soaking the gum will not get rid of your security claim.

The second is, many classic stamps still have really good market value as fine used and a better market "on piece". So, if I buy one of your "replicas", and also have access to correctly aged paper and ink, even today not too hard, make a steel canceller, and simply put them on the paper and sell them as "fine used in piece", your security measure of having "copy" on the back ceases to be a security measure.

And the third. Any one of us can have enough duplicates to put together a reaonable "old" collection, consisting of mostly very old stamps with little value. All that needs to be done is put together such stuff into an album, or Stockbook, "seed" it with a couple of your reproductions, call it Grandpa's collection and whack it on eBay with fuzzy scans and a no return policy, and watch the bunnies bid it through the roof.

So, in all three cases, your material can, and will be used to defraud third party innocents out of their money.

I was on the fence on this discussion, but the further it has gone, and the more thought I have given to it, I think that what you are doing is just plain wrong.

Norm

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Geelong, VFA Premiers 1878, 1879, 1800, 1882, 1883, 1884, 1886, AFL Premiers 1925, 1931, 1937, 1951, 1952, 1963, 2007, 2009, 2011, .

Norm you are right, put "copy" after gumming was fault. Next works will have marking under gum. I will use real post cancelation pigment, so it will be unreal to remove it by soaking in same way as cancelation of stamps.

Cancel them and use on piece is another, more problematic story. For this situation there are secret marks on obverse which you will can find easily in my catalogue which i am preparing. Another one anti-fraud marking will be watermarking + UV ink, if you will put stamp under UV lamp you will see that it is not genuine, even it will be used on piece and heavy canceled.

Problem of grandpa's collection will be here also if there will be no forgeries. Bunnies are looking for treasure for dozens of years. I think that there help only rules as that images and decription of items must be clear and return policy must be part of every auction or sale.

Shareman (and everyone else),

Since the beginning of this thread, ''secret marks'' have been mentioned. Can you show us the secret marks on the forgeries above?

Thanks,

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My wantlist for Malta Revenues

shareman,

re your comment,

" ".

Please name these stores so that every true philatelist in the world can avoid them.

Personally I think your comment is a lot of BS,

I repeat it is about time that the moderators locked this thread and banned Shareman and any other member who admits that he is forging stamps.

David B.

There are people who love tofu and there are people who hate it and can not believe how someone can eat it.
It is your opinion, I appreciate every opinion, including opinions which judge me.



I think it is not good idea, i want show you how you can recognize them. I will inform you about every step what i am planning or what i did. It would be useful especialy for begginers and forgeries collectors, but also for common collectors.

I am with David on this. How does producing these forgeries help collectors? How long before spivs are offering these as genuine on eBay? By all means, produce facsimiles, as long as they are clearly labeled as such on the front of the label (I won't call them stamps). Make it part of the actual printed design, so it cannot be removed.

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Peter
Hawthorn - AFL Premiers 1961, 1971, 1976, 1978, 1983, 1986, 1988, 1989, 1991, 2008.

No - David would rather this thread be locked so that we have no further discussion. That's the worst thing: by keeping it open discussion continues, we might yet see the marks on the obverse, and the postmarks that are going to be applied to the 'used' examples.

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Ian Billings - Norvic Philatelics GB stamps info: http://www.norphil.co.uk - also /catalog for our ecommerce site, blog.norphil.co.uk, shop.norphil.co.uk and Ian_norvic on twitter

Ian,

OK as soon as the tell tell marks have been shown & the postmarks then lock it.

I doubt there are any tell tale marks anyway,

David B.

I agree with norvic here. As for shareman, could you please show us the secret marks on the reproductions a few posts above?

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The marks should not be secret, they should be obvious. Anything else is just an invitation to cheat collectors of their money.

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Peter
Hawthorn - AFL Premiers 1961, 1971, 1976, 1978, 1983, 1986, 1988, 1989, 1991, 2008.

I don't think marks should be obvious, but the reproductions should have a clearly impossible cancel (preferably a cancel that doesn't exist at all, not a cancel of a different place ).

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My wantlist for Malta Revenues

That would sort of be defeating the point (well, at least what I would assume is the point to anyone who wants to buy these items) - I'd not want a replica painting of the Mona Lisa, where she has sun glasses and blonde hair, just to make it clear it isn't the real thing...

...actually, maybe I would. Should have thought about that a bit more perhaps!

Seriously though, why all the anger at the original poster, who told of his own free will what he is doing and why. Why no such concern for the hundred others doing the same thing, in secret, to make money in all the ways listed above?

Banning or gagging our chap here solves nothing and continued discussion is the only thing (short of a magic wand) that will help deal with the complexities that 'non-genuine' material has always posed for the hobby. Either that, or taking up another hobby.

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Norbert

norbert,

" "

cos the only reason he did it was to advertise his wares hoping that there would be buyers for it. He has already stated that finding his web page where he sells them is obvious. I haven't looked but I presume some of the other readers have,

I have been involved with Stamp Chats since the late 1990's and there have been plenty of forgers who have come on them with all sort of made up stories, this has been one of them,

David B.

And nobody on eBay buys items that have impossible cancels, do they? If the cancel says Reproduction or Facsimile then fine, but if it is just an anonymous cancel that only a specialist recognises as incorrect then it is a nonsense to think that solves the problem.

The number of Chinese 'reprints' that get offered as the genuine article (and get bought by dills thinking they are getting a bargain) is mind numbing! The output here would be no different.

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Peter
Hawthorn - AFL Premiers 1961, 1971, 1976, 1978, 1983, 1986, 1988, 1989, 1991, 2008.

From what he has shown.

The GB One Pound Edward & the Gibraltar, paper too thick, no watermark, newbies should be able to tell unless they are advertised as Proofs.

Buenos Ayres tete beche pair, no one in their right mind would buy this without a certificate.

US 1869 30c., wrong paper, no grill unless being sold as the re-issue and then it should be with a certificate.

The last two are very dangerous and many would be fooled by them.

David B.

"no one in their right mind would buy this without a certificate"

Says it all really.

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Ian Billings - Norvic Philatelics GB stamps info: http://www.norphil.co.uk - also /catalog for our ecommerce site, blog.norphil.co.uk, shop.norphil.co.uk and Ian_norvic on twitter

Peter,

those Chinese reprints are also no watermark and there are most probably 100 or more people forging them, all doing a good job using the same technology and shrewdness of Shareman.

They are impossible to tell from a scan and virtually impossible to tell when viewed.

David B.

Ian,

re


right mind & Ebay ?.

David B.

I'm not talking about a cancel reading 'REPRODUCTION', I'm saying just a cancel that has never been used (or wasn't being used at the time the stamp was issued).



Labuan and North Borneo did this in the early 20th century when they cancelled huge stocks of unsold stamps with non-existent cancels.

If shareman can come up with something similar (not a cancel similar to the one on the Labuan stamp; a non-existent cancel), it will be easy to tell from the fakes and the real ones. A new collector can easily spot Labuan/North Borneo CTOs from genuinely postally used stamps.

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My wantlist for Malta Revenues

Ian, there are people buying items on eBay today that should not be touched without a certificate. If they think they are getting a bargain, many will take the gamble. except that, in this case, there is no gamble is there? The items will be fake.

There are people paying very large amounts of money, on eBay today, for Australian items described as MUH. Items I wouldn't touch without a certificate, considering the 100% premium over MLH. We are talking thousands of dollars in some cases. Are they idiots? Probably. Will they keep collecting when/if they discover they have been had? Probably not.

Do we really need to disillusion more collectors that badly?

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Peter
Hawthorn - AFL Premiers 1961, 1971, 1976, 1978, 1983, 1986, 1988, 1989, 1991, 2008.

And all collectors can tell the difference between a possible and not-possible cancel, is that your contention? If they can't then they deserve to be ripped off, perhaps?

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Peter
Hawthorn - AFL Premiers 1961, 1971, 1976, 1978, 1983, 1986, 1988, 1989, 1991, 2008.

There is also the eBay requirement that all fakes or forgeries are indelible marked as such on the face of the stamp. Rarely happens, of course, because the spivs need the bunnies to believe it just might be real.

I don't see why a cancel that clearly says REPRODUCTION or similar (make it a nice circular cancel) is so concerning to people. The supposed intent, as I understand it, is to produce a reproduction of scarce stamps to fill holes in albums.

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Peter
Hawthorn - AFL Premiers 1961, 1971, 1976, 1978, 1983, 1986, 1988, 1989, 1991, 2008.

What I'm saying is:

If shareman puts impossible cancels on his forgeries it will be easy to tell between genuine and fake.

By impossible cancels I mean a Maltese Cross cancellation on a GB King Edward VII £1.

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My wantlist for Malta Revenues

I am sorry, but I completely disagree. You know the cancel is not possible but, frankly, I wouldn't. I don't collect those stamps. Whilst I would never start collecting an area I had not researched, there are plenty of people who would and do.

Unless the item is unambiguously marked as being a reproduction then it is simply an open invitation to defraud, either now or in the future.

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Peter
Hawthorn - AFL Premiers 1961, 1971, 1976, 1978, 1983, 1986, 1988, 1989, 1991, 2008.

Has there been any comment about the perforations and whether the gauge used on the so called reproductions (read forgeries) is the same or different than on the original issues,

David B.

I see your point. However I thought most would know that something is fishy when they see this:



on this:

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My wantlist for Malta Revenues

I can see we are simply not going to agree. Your proposal allows fraud to occur more easily than mine.

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Peter
Hawthorn - AFL Premiers 1961, 1971, 1976, 1978, 1983, 1986, 1988, 1989, 1991, 2008.

Once again, I see your point. Although sometimes it is difficult to know between a genuine cancel and an impossible cancel in an area in which you do not specialize, why would you spend big money on a stamp from a country which is not your main collecting area?

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My wantlist for Malta Revenues

Why indeed? The trouble is, people do. You see it every day. Some just have more money than sense, some think they know more than they actually do.

Why make it easier for a spiv in the future to defraud someone of their money? It is easier to prevent the problem than to fix it later.

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Peter
Hawthorn - AFL Premiers 1961, 1971, 1976, 1978, 1983, 1986, 1988, 1989, 1991, 2008.

Hi David,

Thanks for the reply, I can see where you are coming from now and it is fairly understandable. I however gave the Shareman the benefit of the doubt. He is clearly not stupid; it takes skill to be able to make reproductions of the quality that he has achieved.

If I were a stamp forger, keen to get my wares sold, starting a thread on Stampboards (which I think we can all agree is highly policed/scrutanised by the moderators and community) would be a bad way to go about it. I tried googling to see what this guy has, what they look like and what they go for, without any luck - maybe your google skills are better than mine, feel free to try.

Instead, if my goal was some free advertising, I would simply create an account on here in a false name (fake email address, go via a proxy or two and make sure the claimed geolocation matches your application, so you can spoof being half way round the world), then post up a link in the 'auctions' forum saying 'Hey, I've noticed this guy selling some very convincing forgeries at http://www.whatever.blah, etc, etc' and you'd have created a similar debate, complete with links to the items, all not connected to your real identity. You'd probably even get congratulated for your good eyes, rather than getting flak. Would this approach get detected as a stealth advert? Maybe, but I suspect not.

All that is described above is the work of minutes and I'm sure you could go about this with a much higher level of sophistication if more thought was put into it than the 30 seconds it took me to come up with the method above - career forgers are probably fairly savvy and it'd be worth their time to think it through.

For what it's worth, good forgeries are a danger to our hobby, will probably make me think several times over before ever considering purchasing any stamp costing more than maybe £50 and there's nothing we can do about it but educate ourselves.

As to the debate about 'wrong' postmarks vs postmarks from the town of 'reproduction/fake':
A) Depends on what level of stamp collector you are trying to protect. How 'senior' would you need to be before putting hundreds of bucks into a single item?
B) 'reproduction/fake' on a cancelation is fairly hard to mistake as real, no matter how junior you are
C) If a forger sells 'mint' as well as 'used', does it really matter?

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Norbert

Problem is, if Shareman changes his cancels to whatever, it doesn't fix the problem at all really, as he's not the only game in town I'd guess, when it comes to fake stamps.

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Norbert

OK, so since there are others we just shouldn't bother in this case?

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Peter
Hawthorn - AFL Premiers 1961, 1971, 1976, 1978, 1983, 1986, 1988, 1989, 1991, 2008.

As I said earlier, I am against forgeries and will never spend ANY money on a stamp which I know is forged (unless it is a postal forgery, but that is a different story). I think that shareman should put fake cancels (either with or without REPRODUCTION) AND do the wrong perf gauge AND do a wrong watermark AND write on the back UNDER THE GUM.

As for the secret mark, it should be more obvious but not too obvious (not just a dot as it can be easily mistaked for a flaw). For example, if it is a forgery of a GB QV stamp with corner letters, you can do an impossible combination (eg. Z-Z), for the Edward £1, you could do a different design in the corners or you could misspell a word (eg. POTSAGE for POSTAGE). I will consider anything other than these as an attempt to defraud collectors.

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My wantlist for Malta Revenues

Matt, I seriously think that you are oversetimating the intelligence of the average eBay Bunny. I posted this on Page 1 of this thread, and I suggest you read through it, as it might change your perspective a tad.



Norm

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Geelong, VFA Premiers 1878, 1879, 1800, 1882, 1883, 1884, 1886, AFL Premiers 1925, 1931, 1937, 1951, 1952, 1963, 2007, 2009, 2011, .

Creation and selling of forgeries really does nothing for this hobby.

Why?

Because there are 1000's of dishonest online traders who will just take photos of suh things and list them up on eBay without mentioning they are forgeries.

New collectors who are inexperienced will assume they are the real deal, and pay decent money to buy them.

Then when they show them on stampboards or try to sell them, they find out the truth and are left with a very sour taste in their mouth.

If I was new to collecting and found out I had wasted money on 'stamps' worth zero, I would tell everyone I know to avoid this hobby.

Production of fakes, forgeries etc does nothing for philately - Except add to dissapointment of new collectors when they realise they've spent money on crap.

I would not buy fakes or forgeries because I don't want them in my collection.

I don't understand why people waste money buying fake stamps. At the end of the day, the best thing you can do is buy real stamps from real dealers who are members of recognised trade bodies, as this should give you confidence in who you are dealing with.

Sure some dealers make money out of dishonesty - but they don't stay in business. The people who make real money in philately need to be honest and trustworthy. Selling crap and ripping off customers will damage your business in the long run.

I see no benefits of forgeries. I would rather a gap in my collection than a random piece of printed paper worth 1c.

I don't think the hobby of stamp collecting or philately has much to worry about with newbies telling others to avoid the hobby because of their own stupidity. There are plenty of people promoting the hobby for what it is.

Anybody who buys highly catalogued stamps such as those shown without having a good idea of what they are buying is a fool. At what stage do we acknowledge that they are the products of their own folly? If foolish 'investors' get their fingers burned by not being aware of what they are buying..... we are better off without people who are just in stamps for investment. I wouldn't buy art, or coins, hell I wouldn't even buy Victorian GB or Australian OS perfins without asking the right people and buying from knowledgeable sources. Caveat Lepus!

Whilst I agree that the knowledgeable should do what they can to ensure that fraudsters are exposed, it might be better to put more effort into that - ie people selling duds as genuine - and to the elimination of "illegals".

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Ian Billings - Norvic Philatelics GB stamps info: http://www.norphil.co.uk - also /catalog for our ecommerce site, blog.norphil.co.uk, shop.norphil.co.uk and Ian_norvic on twitter

I know there are quite a few eBay Bunnies, and I agree that I overestimated them earlier. However I explained my ideas in this (later) post:

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My wantlist for Malta Revenues

Dear members of Stamp Boards,
thank you for your support, new ideas, but also thank you for strong critisizm.

I want inform you that i decided to destory all works made in old way. Now i take some time and will develop new ones, with new security marks which help protect collectors against fraud from some fools which can buy my works for resold as a genuine ones.
There will be new marks as:
- watermark
- UV marks
- marks under gum which can not be removed. It is special pigment, which is more resistant than pigment of stamps, if someone will try soak it, design of stamp will destory earlier than marks on reverse.
- impossible cancels for used ones

All secret marks i will show you in catalogou which i am preparing, but every big play have a overhaul, so as soon as i will come to home, i will show you secret mark of one of them.

I'd prefer to see big, bold, open marks.

The problem with secret marks is that if you are not one of the lucky people "in the know", you could still be ripped off by someone re-selling these.

This is an example of how fake stamps are used to lure bunnies.

The following page of India Victoria stamps started at USD 3 on eBay.



The first stamp is a "Half Anna" Red from 1854. Repeat a "Half Anna" red from 1854. Used versions of this stamp don't exist (as per SG). All the other stamps on this page including the Two Anna green appear to be OK.

The scan is deliberately not too good. In fact a CTRL "+" is required even to make out the "half Anna". All invitations for bunnies to bid this lot up to a very high price.

So Shareman, if one of your fakes is put (properly stuck and not hinged) on an album page (thereby hiding all your inscriptions on the reverse) and if it is suitably surrounded by low value stamps of similar vintage, would the bunnies not lap it up on eBay?

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