43 Cent Forgery On Cover

I recently obtained this cover

The stamp is the well known forgery of the 43c coil definitive. This cover appears to have gone through the post undetected. I am intrigued by the address. The window envelope appears to have been sent from Laval, Quebec to the MINISTERE DU REVENU which would seem to be a strange place to post a forged cover to unless it was sent by the Ministry as a test to see if these stamps would be detected under normal mail conditions.



Any thoughts as to the origin / meaning of this cover would be greatfuly appreciated.

AQ

Other than stamp collectors, how many people really pay attention to the stamp in the corner. The item made it thru the mail which is all that matters to most people.

I would have thought that the Ministry of Revenue would have been very interested.

Somebody at the top, sure. But the mail clerk probably not so much. Unless there had been a major stink made about the forged stamps making it on to loads of mail and a directive had been sent out to everyone to watch for them and to report them.

I don't know anything about the history of this stamp, but it sure looks like the perfect candidate for a modern forger. I would be curious to know how long it was kept in post offices for purchase.

There is a gentleman in England, who has been making his own stamps,
and using them on mail for 3 years.

He has yet to be talked to.
He has sent cheques for the amount he has forged, returned, no one seems interested.

how do we know it is a forgery?

The address is actually just a few kilometers from my house. It is of a small moms and pops butcher shop that has been there for years. Are you certain that it is a forgery ?

Yes it is a forgery. The printing is wrong and there is no tagging but most of all it is perforated 10.5 and not 10.0. There are a few references to them on line. Mint they are not that uncommon but are much less common genuinely used.

Thanks for the info about the shop I have found it on Google Earth (wonderful program !) and see what you mean. I guess that has answered my main question and it was not sent as a trial. At least one on line source says that these were often exchanged for goods in small shops. I wonder if that happened here.

AQ

AQ,
Is it possible to post a close-up of the stamp?
Don

You know, interesting, but to put my self holding the evidence in a picture with the item--nah...

A close-up would definitely be desirable.

One thing that is a bit unusual is that the untagged stamp has received the machine "spray" cancel. Usually untagged stamps are rejected by the sorting machine before they are cancelled, and end up being sorted by hand. Then they either get a handstamp, or more common, no cancel at all. This commonly happens to covers with older untagged stamps currently being used as postage.

Sure. The forgery is from a separate mint pair but they are the same as the one on the cover

Forgery on the left Genuine on the right