Ilegal G.b.machins

I've read many times over the net that with forged stamps, ex.the G.B. Machins, that even owning one is a no-no.That's fine with me, but what are we supposed to do with them? I don't have one but, do we turn them into our local post offices or call the Machin Police?

Donna

Forgeries,fakes, Printers waste,errors and more are all 'illegal', at least in the UK.
Here is an illegal stamp. Similar stamps have been known to have been taken off from ebay recently.



But no one would ever take it off me ! And as they are being sold openly on the market, along with Fakes,forgeries, Errors and the like....then I can safely say you do NOT need to turn them in.

Far from it, I would say, Enjoy them!

Londonbus1

I saw some illegal stamps at the show last weekend..
the guy had some really nice forgeries..
he said if he went into the UK with them he could be arrested.

The UK, home of the Magna Carta, now has some of the most outrageous and draconian laws outside of dictatorships such a North Korea. There are surveillance cameras everywhere, foreign-born goons, under the guise of Child Protective Services, take children to be sold, it is a crime to own a weapon or even defend yourself in your own home. Cops can beat a newspaper carrier to death and be absolved of responsibility. This is just off the top of my head. You can see and hear about this stuff all the time at infowars.com.

Good points Larry !
I don't think I was quite specific enough in my answer to Donna's question.

All those 'shady' items that I mentioned are openly sold on the market IN THE UK !

I have never heard of anyone being arrested or charged for selling a 24p Machin forgery or an 00p Machin....for example.
These kind of stamps plus errors and Printers waste that are 'smuggled' out of major printing houses on a daily basis are seen every day in shops, dealers lists, auction lists, shows, fairs and markets.

And nothing is done about it nor will anyone do anything about it.
And I am sure I would not be out of line by saying the same thing happens in many, most and maybe even all the other nations of our squeaky-clean world !

You cannot forge a stamp, it is illegal and you will be arrested,charged, found guilty and will serve time. But a week or so down the line, you can find some of those stamps that a poor bugger is serving time for illegally producing, and you can sell it, auction it or eat it for breakfast if that is your wish.
But will you be arrested for it....not on your life !

If everyone in the UK was put in jail for dealing, selling or advertising these kind of items [as they should be?], then the stamp trade would collapse !
But at least we would have one hell of a Philatelic Jail to go and visit on our days off !

So don't worry Donna.

Londonbus1....has loads of illegal stamps and am quivering !

Well, thanks for the answers from all. I just had it in my head that the Machin Police were wee little folks with little bobby helmets with chin straps on. They come in the dead of night to leaf through your albums to find the offending stamps. They would confiscate and ferret them away leaving you with nothing but a summons to court where the stamp was. All written out on a post-it-note of course.

novato,

How do you tell it is false? I do not know. Can you show a good one and the false one side by side in a closer scan perhaps?

Thanks!

The printing is very crude on the forgeries.
The best and easiest way to see the difference is in the perforations which have a very rough look.

I will just repaet what I said earlier about this and other forgeries. It seems very hypocritical of the authorities to 'scream blue murder' over the production of forgeries, while at the same time allowing dealers to buy and sell in public view.
Novato has a copy. Should that be allowed ?
If his copy were mint, would this make a difference ?

Londonbus1

I always wondered about this one. Is it forged?
The face just doesn't look right and the printing (offset/litho) looks poor.

Also can anyone make out the postmark?

certainly looks odd,

I would scan your example with another
at the same dpi, crop, then using the wheel mouse
toggle between the two examples to note any difference.

The perfs seem to be the first indication.

Not a forgery Litho, although the printing is poor !
Royal Mail used Leeds Printer John Waddington Security Print Ltd for 4 stamps...and one can see why it was only 4 !

Your stamp, I believe, is on phosphorised Paper, Lithography [] and perf 14.
Below is a scan of the other 20p with tagging [two phosphor side bands] printed by the same company.

The postmark is a little unusual I must say. Can you read it ?



Bear in mind my copy is a mint one. I'll look for a used too.

Londonbus1

Hello

I know about only the 24p forgery, maybe we have more, but nobody want or like to post a list with all forgery.




Yes, why not? I have maybe 20000 used Machins and only one fake, I´m proud about it



Worth US$100 more

Fernando Moscoso
Ecuador

Not Machins but a great read if anyone hasn't read about it is the QV 5/' forgery know as the Stock Exchange forgery..
There is a PDF version here - http://www.philatelicsannex.org/ref...xforgery.pdf 7Mb

I came across this while researching the 24p forgery. To reply to Donna I have had a run in with the 'Machin Police'. In October 2006 a large number of forged gold 1st class self-stick stamps were sold on ebay. These were like booklets of 12 but the reverse was blank. At the time I has just started buying mint stamps on ebay for postal use and was a bit naive so I bought some of them. Presumably due to the numbers involved the Post Office took this up and I received a letter from the Computer Crime Unit, Corporate Security, 202 Lavender Hill, Battersea, London requiring me to send them the stamps I still had. I do not have the original letter to hand but it certainly implied that holding on to them would be illegal.

I hope you used a couple to mail the rest in.


(Actually, I hope you didn't mail the rest in, but that's another matter...)