Warning On Fake Fred L. Karcher Covers*

Know there are a few of you out there who are into collecting Military covers, so thought I would make you aware of Fake Covers done by Fred L. Karcher. Many of which were done during the Viet Nam War.

Am posting a few examples of his work, my warning is stay away from any of his covers.

BTW For the last few months there have been articles in the monthly USCS Log about him and covers he produced.
The covers I'll show have either "Free" or "Free Combat Zone" for "Franking"
By True Naval cover collectors these are not legit covers, as Fred was not entitled to Free Franking as he was not a member of the Military serving in a Combat Zone.
When Fred died they found a number of stolen Naval cancellors in his possesion, along with rubber stamps made up to resemble ships cancels


The cover below is very questionable, as it has the "Free Combat Zone" Franking, it has an add-on cachet, but the ship's cancel appears to be legit and the ship was in Da Nang of the date of the cancel.

Sneaky...Thanks for the heads up... But tell me.

How does one know the cover is by Fred L. Karcher ?

Hi Bob of Many Gs
" How Fred L. Karcher cover"

A good number of his covers were addressed to him self.
Another way is check the cachet for the initials "FLK", he also distributed his covers under the name of "Old Ironsides Chapter" and "Narragansett Naval Group".

Bob

If anyoe has a question to wheither it is a Karcher cover they can feel free to contact me, here or at Stampoffer, I'll do my best to help, if can't, know where to go to get the info needed to ID Fred's covers.