Huge Amounts Of Fake Tuvalu And Other Countries On Delcampe

A Ukrainian dealer, called Barcik, is selling many lots on Delcampe.com, stamps he describes as bogus, including many from Tuvalu, South Georgia, Angola, Belize, etc. These are all fakes, and mostly inscribed with the date 1909, and come both perf and imperf. Here are two samples:





The Tuvalu Philatelic Bureau and the Government of Tuvalu have asked me to help get the Tuvalu items removed and determine the origin of the producers.

A few questions - 1) does anyone know how easy it is dealing with Delcampe on such matters (I have been successful in having fake Tuvalu items removed from ebay), and 2) Does anyone know who this seller Barcik is? 3) Does the fact that they are described as "bogus" allow the seller to sell them?

Here is the sellers link:

http://stamps.delcampe.com/page/lis...guage,E.html

Thanks in advance.

More:

"3) Does the fact that they are described as "bogus" allow the seller to sell them?"

Very likely. At least he/she is being somewhat honest about the origin of the items.

I spent some time looking at DelCampe's forum area and also looking for any rules or policies they may have published on the web. I haven't seen anything mentioning bogus or forgeries or fakes marked as such so far.

Delcampe is lacking in their policies being listed or stated online. They do seem to respond to security issues in a priorities fashion, so any request you may make to them via email may take them a while to get back to you, depending on how they prioritize it.

ebay does have (if I remember correctly that is) stated policies against listing and procedures in place to handle forgeries and fakes and such like.

This counterfeiting of a country's name on a stamp is similar to identity theft of an individual I feel.

Unfortunately, it seems that some people do buy 'stamps' of dubious origins just because the pictures are pretty and fall into their topic of interest.

If the fellow had printed these (or caused them to be printed) with no country name or a bogus country name then he could claim them to be cinderellas or local posts or some such. Different matter then.

I will keep looking around Delcampe and see if I can root up anything of interest to this disgraceful matter.

Like puzzle said, Im sure if he had sold them with no country name or a false country name it would be fine. I don't think mentioning that theyre bogus is enough to allow the sales - they would have to be stamped as bogus/fake.

Somewhere down the line they will end up in collections and pollute the markets for these countries. The sad thing is people are buying them.

This is an "eye opener" You would THINK that a worldwide organization like Delcampe would have some sort of "Watchdog" commitee..i am not that familiar with them..my wife has purchased a few items from there but its not my usual visiting ground !!

Here's another example, this time with the name "Lundy".

http://stamps.delcampe.com/page/ite...guage,E.html

They clearly have been made quickly reusing elements between labels created for different "countries" and with little care. For example, there are number of ways you could spell the name of the ship Kruzenshtern but Kruzenhtern is not one of them!

At least the seller has clearly stated that the stamps are bogus not only in the description but also up front in the title.

I wonder what the connection between the seller and the producer of the stamps is. That seller has been listing bogus issues inscribed with Russian locations for quite a while, and is the only person selling these particular designs.

While technically it may be legal to sell them, it is illegal to produce them, at least when inscribed with genuine country or territory names that already issue postage stamps.

I wonder how quickly Delcampe would remove them if they were inscribed Canada, United States or France, even if described as bogus.

On the Lundy link above the stamps have a bust of the Queen reversed. He just has had feedback for some parrot stamps (four pictures taken at someone's home) with the World Wildlife symbol (WWF and Panda) on them.

Perhaps mention of these to the appropriate organizations / governments would produce a response. Interfering with the big boy's revenue streams is a no no I would think.

Puzzler,

Genuine Lundy stamps of course wouldn't have the Queen's head as they're private labels.

Sometimes the Queen's head is shown looking to the right on genuine stamps.

BeeSee,

What makes you say that production of these labels is illegal as opposed to just undesirable?

I suspect that the law on this will vary widely depending on jurisdiction and precisely which country names are being used.

Nigelc, you are correct, it depends on the jurisdiction or territory. I know for sure in Canada it is illegal, and Tuvalu because I am working with the government right now. I have seem some of the UPU circulars from many other countries where such stamps have been declared illegal.

You will notice you never see such stamps inscribed with the larger wealthier countries such as Canada or the U.S.

Here is a link to some circulars, I know there are also others.

http://www.askphil.org/d000.htm

Plus Wikipedia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illegal_stamps

It is possible to find larger countries with bogus issues.
These for the most part are designed by artist/political satirists to make some kind of political statement or joke. Their meaning is very clear. Free speech I'm OK with.

With the issues shown on this tread so far they are designed principally to take advantage of two types of collectors theme based, (ie Trains, ships, Scouts etc.) and collectors of stamps from everywhere (ASFE). They then pay a premium for something they believe is genuine. This is fraud & selling it is only encouraging it to continue!

Puzz:

Forward this information to the American Philatelic Society... they have the big guns that can deal with this, for the benefit of the hobby.

David

That is a good idea David. I will report the "WWF" stamps directly to the World Wildlife Fund, it is doubtful they sanctioned those issues.

I also sent an email to them on this matter and stated that it is illegal to even allow the sales on their website and they can be held liable. Maybe that will wake them up.

I used to look at these UPU circulars from time to time but I see my saved link to the UPU site and the UPU links in the Wikipedia article have broken.

Does the UPU still issue these circulars?

Thanks for the information Nigelc. The UPU links do appear to be broken. I sent an email to the UPU informing them that.