Raritan Auctioning Fournier Forgeries Album - ''album De Fac-Similes''

This is a stunningly preserved copy of this work with an equally stunning estimate. Lot number 1526.

https://stampauctionnetwork.com/RT/rt9377.cfm#334

Are there ever any beat up copies around? These never really get used much. A better selling point is that it is intact, since these are worth more when broken up. There is also a range of completeness with the more complete books bringing more. Weren't these numbered?

There is a copied black and white paperback version done by Lowell Ragatz many years ago. There is/was also a CD-ROM version. The problem comes where there are more than just the Fournier forgery around for classic stamps. You know what one forgery looks like, but not the genuine.

The Raritan copy is 170 of 480.

..." a must for a serious collector or dealer..."

Or is it 'a must for the serious dealer who can break it down and then salt hundreds of collections for the next ten years'?

Kelleher sold one last month, perhaps less stunning. Auction 766, Lot 1785. Realized $3250 compared to $5000-$6000 estimate.

The forgeries are clearly marked FAUX or similarly backstamped, often showing through to the front. Hard to imagine this would fool people by using them to salt old collections. There are plenty of forgeries around otherwise.

Buyers of these albums have profited by breaking up the albums by pages or part pages. Collectors want the forgeries of specific countries and not the whole.

Price is very much in the ballpark for a very good intact example. I believe they were all assembled by hand in the 1920's, and Fournier's remaining stock burned.

Don,
can you explain this idiom please?

Salting the worthless mine with some gold so that the sucker sees riches at his fingertips.

Taking higher catalog value stamps (could be faulty or forgeries) and inserting them into a large accumulation/album/collections of more common stamps. By putting faulty or forgeries into a accumulation/album/collection, they avoid having to call out the issues (as opposed to selling them as singles). By adding higher catalog stamps in previously picked over material, it increases interest and demand.
Don

Thanks Geoff
never used it, don't come across it very often

Found
To make something appear more valuable by adding or applying something to it in a fraudulent or deceptive manner.

Aha! Thanks Don
funny you should describe it like that, recently I have "watched"
eBay and "old collections" in old Albums.
The prices they are fetching is extraordinary,
I see most fairly common stamps with an occasional seeming scarcity or weird cinderellas "to salt" as you say the collection.

I put an estimate of $45 on 1 album, and had in excess of 40 bids
knocking down in the $300's