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Who does the seller think would pay this much money for a fake? Even one that was "exceptionally well performed"?
It all comes down to supply and demand. Believe it or not, there are some fakes that can be worth quite a bit of money for those who collect that sort of thing. As you know, a seller can ask anything he chooses, it is up to the buyer to be discriminating enough to know when to bid and at what price.
In the case of the stamp shown at the above link, the seller has clearly identified it as a fake overprint and it is up to a potential buyer to determine if he or she is willing to pay that price for the item as described.
For someone who can't afford a CV $22,500 original, a fake -- even at $167.50 (which comes out to about 3/4ths of 1% of the catalog value of an original) -- may be a cheap price to pay in comparison.
Personally, I would not buy it; but that doesn't mean there aren't those who would. Since I'm not a collector of French stamps, I am not sure what the differences really are between the original and fake (i.e. How easy is it to tell the fake apart from the genuine stamp?) but what does concern me is if an unsuspecting purchaser decides to buy the stamp with the intent to re-sell it without disclosing reference to it being a fake. Someone could get swindled out of a large sum of money that way.
As always, it's buyer beware!
Posted 08/17/2013 2:46 pm
