Re: Modern Fake Stamps Are Flooding The Market

I don't think you'll gain enormous sympathy by seeking to constrain comment. Jenny's point is well made.

That crazy Gilligan. Just when the skipper gets things straightened out he botches everything up again!

The Nevis 3rd series Locomotives Imperforate Forgeries page is now live. The comparisons are wild!

Here is an imaged snapshot of recent sales on Delcampe of some of the fake inverts that have already sold to many victims. It shows you proof (for those non-believers) that indeed there are many collectors out there willing to pay the amounts shown for them. I have redacted the names of the sellers for privacy and defamation concerns.

Again, we need you to print this forum out and take a picture of you holding it.

Been watching this for a while. I wasn't going to bother responding, we are all only feeding the fire here, but here goes anyway. The last post by the thread starter proves nothing, only that people are selling this stuff, not how many poor innocents are buying it. If you are in the market for these type of 'stamps' then surely you should know what you are looking at.

The secret to a world-class fried baloney sandwich is in the cheese. For me, it's got to be Velveeta!

And remember folks, in the entertainment industry there is no bad publicity.

As I said...there are lots of non-believers. Actually they just do not want to believe even when proof is placed in front of them. The same thing occurs in many different relms. These people will never accept the truth because of what has been programmed in their heads for years, their ego is to big to accept they are wrong, or they simply walk around with their eyes closed.

This one image is only the tip of the iceburg. I am not going to post image after image after image of the sales. You can look yourself simply by searching on ebay or delcampe.

Try this one...
Go to ebay
go to stamps
tick on worldwide
search for Nevis birds
Look at how many lots of half panes are for sale.
then tick on completed items and look.

That is just two fake sets. Nuff said...

While I think the Leaders of the World are wallpaper, I do realize that others (albeit a small number of people) do collect them and so it is a problem if someone is selling forgeries.

Do I think there were millions of any one issue printed (which seemed to be a big topic on the OZ site)? No. Do I think supply of the originals exceeds demand? Yes.

The inverts, imperfs, and missing colors that were produced by Format at the same time as the normal versions are not errors in any sense of the word as they were intentionally produced.

Do I think that the guy on this crucade is a bit shall we say "off"? Absolutely, but forgeries are still a problem. They could easily start forging something that more people care about.

Hello eyeonwall,
Thank you for the comment.
It has been put in a respectable and intelligent way.

The number of collectors of LOTW issues is large not small. Albeit collectors of LOTW issues as a whole is....small. LOTW stamps are topicals, therefore it is topical collectors who are the major buyers of them. Look at your own topicals section in this forum. Almost every "topic" is "on fire". They are the major number of victims here.

Apparently the supply of originals does not exceed demand or the forgers would not waste their time making the forgeries.

The intentional errors created by Format are far exceeded by intentional errors by other printers. Read my page on The House of Questa to learn. My research is uncovering a very dark history that will change your view on stamps forever. It has been going on in a major way since the 50's.




They are already.....and...hehe...we are all "off" or we would not be collectors.

It's a shame that the effort you have put into documenting the stamps of Format is wasted because your website is unreadable (to me anyway). You visit your site once but don't want to return because of its garish colours on a black background, flashing images and a long wait for each page to download.

Just trying to help

Mike

Hi Mike,
Sorry for the slow download but the server is run off my PC via Comcast. It is possible you have an issue on your end because many people have no problem downloading the page. True many have a lot of images and thus that can slow it a bit.

The colors issue is easily solved by setting your browser to using "no style". If you use Microsoft edge then you just click on the little book at the top of your browser and ...boom...easy on your eyes reading without the graphics.

Sorry if you don't like the look. The site was started many years ago and changing the code would be a chore I do not have time to do. Try writing code for a webpage from scratch some time. You will see...it takes a lot of time. Just making the images and writing the pages for these new forgeries using similar pages and converting them takes around 3-4 hours of work.

I would much rather work on the Format project than on these forgeries but it is just too much of a threat to the very hobby for many to let it go without at least trying to help the community understand the massive scope of what is and has happened and to try to get others to help before it is too late.

This is not just Leaders of the World issues.
Here are a couple issues I am about to get which I am sure will be forgeries.

Nauru 1982 Scouting Year Scott 249a imperforate souvenir sheet.
It effects Nauru collectors, Scout collectors and Worldwide collectors.

Barbuda 1983 Manned Flight Graf Zeppelin Scott 581 imperforate souvenir sheet.
It effects Barbuda collectors, Zeppelin collectors, Aircraft collectors, Manned flight anniversary collectors, Worldwide collectors.

So you see...some want to persist on the Leaders of the World thing but it is not just those issues. Those are just the ones I first discovered that are leading to a trail effecting these and will effect many more if the people responsible are not exposed and stopped.

Yes, some who collect very old issues only may not be effected, but you more advanced collectors have associates and connections that can help to stop these modern fake stamps if you just put in a little effort by helping get the word out.

Get the catalogs to note their existence.
Get the editors of philatelic magazines to write articles getting the word out.
Get the philatelic societies such as the PTS, ASDA, APS to get the word out.

I cannot do it alone. I am only the discoverer due to my research on Format. You can see I get a lot of dispute because my research is controversial to some. That is to be expected...the issues and the printer have a LOT of controversial issues simply because of the exposing in the trials. What I have discovered in my research is uncovering many problems with stamps and it involves much more than the Format printers. Should certain other printers have been put under the same trial circumstances you would indeed be saying the same things about them that you say about Format and indeed it would entail a majority of countries in the world.

But that is many other stories friends.
Let's stick with the present problem that is happening now!
Help stop the sale of these new forgeries or indeed there will be many more flooding the market

Barbuda and Nauru are only the few sold in the lot I discovered. I am almost certain there are others and will be definitely certain when I get a look at them and verify they are forged.....that more are coming. A lot more....

Shodan,
This is my first post in your thread. I will be frank, it appears to me that many of your problems are self-inflicted. You try to assist philately by spreading the word about these fakes yet refuse to improve the poor web site design. You want persuade folks about these fake issues but also stand to profit if everyone agrees with your perspective.

Your reasoning about not improving the web site is particularly troubling to me. You seem to be passionate about this issue; it seems odd that this passion would not be great enough to drive you to be interested in improving the site. Given the feedback you have received, it could be that improving the web site might be the single best thing you could do to reach more people.

And your point about the time it takes to updates many html files is not correct. It may be true that you do not know how to do this, but it is certainly straight forward. Simply download and install any one of the free web editor packages such as the Microsoft Expression Web (free). Use the 'find and replace' function for the style code; it will work across every file in the site in a single pass. You could probably update every page in less than 10 minutes.

I would also recommend that you consider divesting yourself of any stock and selling activity which is impacted with this issue. There will always be a question in the minds of many folks about the motivation of a person if they stand to make or lose money in these kinds of issues.

If you can get past these self-inflicted problems I think you would reach more people with less hassles.
Don

sheeesh, wish you would all get off the "my stock" thing.
My "stock" is specialized and is NOT effected by common issues.
some dealers I associate with ARE effected.

so far the only thing "effected" is the St. Lucia butterflies and Nevis birds.

Only thing is....MY stock is the Bileski pieces from the 4 press sheets and the missing color errors from those 4 press sheets.

for the St. Lucia Butterflies...MY stock is the original color proofs of which two values don't even have all of the colors because they were DESTROYED.

So get off MY STOCK.

As for changing the site...Only SOME of you complain and you are far between. Plenty of sites use "garish" colors. I like "garish" colors just like I like researching into controversial issues. So if YOU don't like the colors...it is YOUR choice to simply take two seconds to click on the little book in YOUR browser.

Now get back to the subject of the thread and talk about the forgeries...not me, not my site. That is what I mean about non-believers, ego's, and walking around with blind eyes that do not wish to see. It is petty.

The problem is real and you can easily verify it YOURSELF if you do not believe. since some of you are "so big" and spend hundreds if not thousands on the classics, it should not hurt to spend a couple dollars on the fakes and spend a couple dollars getting an "original". Don't worry...IM NOT SELLING THEM.
Then compare them yourself.

The same type of railroaders were on that other forum. If you do not think they are here, sadly...you are mistaken. That is why I do not like forums and RARELY use them. This problem is just too big to not at least try to use this one avenue that indeed I prefer NOT to be involved in because of this type of atmosphere.

There are many of us out there that are in the same frame of mind. In general...we do not like forums because of this. We would rather do research and work with our own groups and collect on our own.
Off to work for the day!

Shodan,
As your last post proves; most of your problems are self-inflicted. You have no clue when it comes to usability and this in turn hurts your effort to generate support. When I let you know your excuse for not improving the site (too much work) is not valid, you ignore this and just go off on a diatribe.

Ditto for your lack of understanding that having ANY potential profit motivations in similar material will pollute your altruistic efforts. Good luck on convincing others to ignore these issues and only dwell on what you want them to. For me, your efforts are not effective because of these issues and is made worse by replies like the one above. Perhaps starting the thread with 'I am not interested in any improvements or suggestions on how to reach more people' would avoid having anyone post like I did.

It is little wonder why do not like public forums. But hey ignore even the constructive input others are giving you and stay the course, perhaps you have discovered a new way for generating a lot of support.
Don