Facsimilies

I was wondering what other collectors think of having facsimilies of very rare stamps in your collection? The ones I have been looking at clearly have facsimilies printed on the back of the stamp so there is no way it could be passed off or used to fool a person. I thought this might be a nice way to put something into the blank spots in my stamp album that most likely will never be filled. What are your thoughts?

David

This idea has come up before.

https://goscf.com/t/12828&SearchTerms=facsimilie

Also keep this in mind: If you start putting those in your collection, especially a classic collection, it will destroy the validity of the rest of your collection! If I was looking at a collection an seen a fake it would cast a huge doubt on the rest of it. Just my opinion.

I purchased a used Scott Master Canadian album and I plan to completely fill it with used stamps (up to 1979). This is the same as my childhood album. I purchased on ebay three sets of copy Canadian stamps, which will fill up the first three pages of the album more or less. I can then concentrate on finding the cheap used copies to fill the rest. Childhood dream to actually have a complete album.

Personally I would rather have the blank spaces in my albums than mount facsimiles. I echo what others have said, they will only degrade the perception of your collection.

Terry

I guess, though, I will say that as long as your not attempting to deceive (and I don't believe you are) then it's totally your choice but I would strongly err on the side of caution and make sure they are clearly marked. I'll admit that I have have thought about doing the same with the US scott #2 & #4 but resisted the urge.

I have only made one facsimilie thus far, as pictured in the previous thread (GB 1882 QV 5 pound stamp). I enjoy seeing it in my album.

I have never considered a facsimilie. I feel that I may as well clip the colored picture out of a catalog, if all I want to do is fill the space.
I have resigned myself to the fact that I will (probably) never have all the stamps in the world or even the US.

I put quite a bit of work into mine, Kathey. I searched the internet for just the image I wanted (a mint copy with black background. I sized it correctly to the exact size of the original stamp, and printed it out on high-quality paper. Part of the satisfaction is having put the work into getting just the image I wanted, and producing a facsimilie to my satisfaction.

If I decided some day to make a big monetary investment in my Great Britain collection, I might hope to obtain a fiscally used copy at great discount to catalog value (still alot of money) to put in place of the facsimilie.

smauggie,
I'm quite sure that you put in a little more than "a bit of work". And, as has been said, it is your very own collection.
I have albums which have black & white illustrations, so I'm not really looking at blank empty squares. I have many pictures that need actual stamps. I have patience and very little expectation to ever having the funds for "a big monetary investment" in my collection.

To develop a point mentioned above, what I've heard over the years is that the presence of a facsimile (or fake) causes the rest of your collection to be suspect. This is important when your successor seeks to do something with your collection (unless they're already an experienced collector and want to build upon it).

While you're alive, it seems to me that the facsimile problem is manageable, as long as you're of sound mind, because you can point these out to anyone you're showing your collection to.

However, unless your plans are to have your collection thrown in the trash upon your demise, the person who will be responsible for doing something with your stamps may encounter some problems.

It seems like a workaround to this problem is not only to mark each of the facsimiles on the back (as people mentioned above), but also to make a separate list of them all, indicating their exact location in your album and ideally including a copy of the illustration. Make it goof-proof, so that someone without philatelic experience could find those specific examples in your collection. (I would not mark it in the album, except with something easily removable like a post-it on that album page if you so choose.)

Then include explicit instructions on that list that your successor remove those facsimiles from your collection before it's shown to anyone who might be a possible buyer or even someone who would help advise on how to dispose of the collection. (Or perhaps even if it's just passed on to another collector, except to one experienced enough to know how to handle the presence of facsimiles.)

Put that list in the front of your album, where it won't easily get separated from the album itself.

If you do that, then perhaps there can be a win-win outcome: you can enjoy the presence of those facsimiles in your collection, but then you can also make sure that they do not "contaminate" your collection after it passes out of your hands sometime in the future.

Just my 2-cents' worth ...

-- Dave

I have been doing this with my Heirloom album for some time. I use auction catalogues because the color prints are sharp. This won't work if you use clear mounts but if you use black you can just trim closely around the image, pop in a mount and put on your page. I understand this horrifies some people. That's their right to feel that way but from my standpoint I'd rather have something attractive filling the space. It is usually a stopgap for me until I can afford/find the real stamp and I have substituted on several since I began to do this.

Old news !

I collect them as part of my Cinderella collection. They look good and are a lot of fun.
And let's not forget that some are not cheap and superb quality.

Don't knock 'em !













Londonbus1

Philatarium has given a good guide for making the use of facsimiles "goof proof". I think people could and should collect in any way they sees fit as long the goals are legal and ethical.

But my humble opinion on facsimiles, to exagerate to the absurd: If a person purchased an album and filled every space with a facsimle before ever acquiring the first stamp, they would likely have an eye-pleasing "collection". But it seems there would be little satisfaction as the facsimiles were replaced, one by one, with actual stamps, some of which may not be as pleasing as the facsimiles!

It is the gratification that comes from filling the EMPTY spaces the drives me onward and causes me to spend more than I should to do so!

Filling empty spaces sounds boring to me. :)

My opinion on facsimiles has evolved. At one point, I thought putting clearly and indelibly marked fakes in my album as a substitute for stamps unobtainable (by me) would be OK. I then bought the $1- $5 Columbian facsimiles from a seller on ebay, whose pictures met my criteria. The fakes received, however, were not marked as shown in the pictures so I contacted the seller, who indicated he sent the wrong ones. I returned the unmarked fakes and he sent me an envelope with a piece of tag board in it (and no facsimiles). I decided at that point that the whole idea just lends itself to abuse, and I did not want to support it.

As I look at my Washington-Franklins, and ponder whether someone at some time trimmed perforations to fake rarer coils or the like, my distaste for any sort of shenanigans with fakery or facsimile has grown. The person keeping facsimiles in their collection (as I once tried to do), may be as pure as Mother Theresa, but once let loose, the possibility for someone, someday thinking they are real cannot be eliminated.