US Presidential Series 3c Jefferson Stamp - Counterfeits

I don't know that I've ever heard the story behind the Nathan Levine counterfeit 3c Stamps as offered in this ad:

http://www.mysticstamp.com/viewProd...sp?sku=M9189

While this offer seems overpriced -- and I'm not particularly interested in counterfeits anyway -- I find the story rather fascinating and didn't know if any SCF members might have more information about the scam and/or how many of these counterfeits may have been used and/or made their way into collectors hands.

There is a imperfed version of this forgery as well. They were issued between I think 1938 to 1949. Levine produced I believe about 5 thousandish. Something around that number.

Thanks. Based on the "limited" number produced, I assume it would be quite a rare thing to find one of them amongst a kiloware load of the Jefferson stamps.

However, it does make the challenge a bit more interesting in the rare event I'd ever find one.

In my opinion, it is sad when a major stamp company plays up the fact that they are counterfeit and therefore worth more than the real thing. That just adds credence to a potential counterfeiter that it pays to do so.

I'm guessing these were postal counterfeits made to defraud the post office, not collectors?

Matt

You're correct (I think). I've found very little information on-line about the entire incident, other than the fifth entry in this link about counterfeit US stamps:

http://stampsjoann.net/Counterfeit/...it-main.html