How Many Fakes, Forgeries And Reprints Are In Your Big Blue

Week after week I take WW collections apart and resell them as country lots and in many of these lots I know there are probably fakes, forgeries and reprints, but countries such as Persia, Heliglioland, German States always sell well. Perhaps I'm selling these high risk countries at a small fraction of the catalog value but the point is they always sell. It seems to me many collectors have accepted these dubious items as part of their collection. I am wondering how folks on this Forum deal with this issue? Do you weed them out, put them on separate pages or just put them in your collection?

It is very difficult for generel world wide collectors to deal with high risk countries like Persia or Heligoland. Often, it require specialist knowledge to deal with them. For world-wide collectors, accepting dubious items are part of collecting these countries in my opinion.

Note that the market for stamps from many of these high-risk countries are very poor / non-existing. Material can be bought at a fraction of CV, because people assume the worst. For countries where there are no international renewed expert you can contact for expertising, the situation is often worst.

My fakes are in a separate stockbook, since I have some print references. A plan which still may happen is to collect the classic fakes in an old brown Scott that's not too beat up. There's still a problem with fakes on facing pages and not wanting to bulk up the album with interleaving. Some fakes are hinged into a couple of the Barefoot & Hall forgery booklets I have, so the collection may go into reference books instead.

Borderline items I know nothing about sits in a separate working stockbook. I still might have some fakes in the albums, though.

For the countries mentioned, yes, price makes the difference in a lot/country collection. These are big blank spaces in most WW collections. Not so with something like Mafia Island, where nothing will be cheap, you can't buy bunches of doubtful ones any day. There's probably only a few spaces for it in a Big Blue, anyway. So do most w/w collectors care at all about Mafia Island? I've got one stamp with a cert and that's enough for me.

Some of the classic fakes like some of the Cape triangle ones were sold cheap as spacefillers for the average collector. Now we have a market for color-printed equally bad fakes of expensive stamps, not quite so cheap. Nothing changes, it seems.

Just like my lawn, the weeds somehow manage to constantly pop up. Even when I think I have a handle on them the next time I take a look there seems to be more.

Much of this is due to my own ignorance and never ending education. So I pencil in a 'F' next to those fakes and forgeries when I have no legitimate copies. But my Big Blues are the 'fun' part of my collecting (unlike my specialize albums) so no worries. After 4 decades of filling them I don't care if they have resale value or not. They have delivered more 'fun' than I have spent on them, so it's 100% profit.
Don

I'm with Don.


Persia: Left: 1882 Scott 51 10c deep pink & rose "Sun"
Right: Reprint-Forgery

But part of the fun of being a WW collector is expanding one's abilities to detect forgeries. I try to have legit copies in the spaces, with the fakes off to the side, but, if not, I mark in pencil an "F"nearby.

I'm similar to KRelyea in buying collections to break down. If I recognize a poor fake I set it aside for donation to APS. For a few of the famous fakers (e.g., Sperati) I may offer for sale as reference items.
Dan

One of my projects for the future is to go through about 15 or so pages of old Persia/Iran stamps to see what is what. I have the Persiphila catalog for the classics, and also the Serrane Guide published by APS.

Closer to home; in my main Portugal & Colonies collection (all of my main collections are in Big Blue albums); I've identified a number of Fournier forgeries of the classic late 1870s Crown stamps, mostly Portuguese India. They're mounted in my main collection, but identified as forgeries.

Fakes and Forgeries are a important part of the hobby . They help many dealers to reduce the price of collections they are buying from widows and orphans .
It is important sometimes for me to bring along some extra easy to identify fakes when I come over to your house to make a offer for your collection from the family you left behind .
Why many times I bring along Scott Catalogs which help by telling your family that counterfeits exist . I have been so bold to tell them every stamp over $10.00 needs to be checked and certified that it is not a fake . I had one situation were a dealer was offering more money than me for a collection and told them that that same dealer went into court and got most of his money back from a family that sold a family heirloom collection because the courts ruled that he was scammed into buying a collection of fakes .....horrible story . I try to be honest with your family about all the fakes and less than perfect stamps your collection has .
So as you can see FAKES and FORGERIES play a important part of the hobby .

Even stamp auction firms use FAKES and FORGERIES ......this is a true story and I was the one who paid for it .
There was a stamp lot at auction which had a lot of mid-1930 long complete sets which wasn't identified in the lot describtion in the catalog put out by the auction house ,there was a lot of unusual complete sets ,I wanted that lot .
During the auction it was me against some E-BAY seller who wasn't a collector but a catalog queen and price the lot according to a fraction of catalog . After he dropped his card and I won the lot ,I was in line to settle up on my purchases. I asked him why was he running up the price on the lot . Then he told me something that floored me and I never thought about . That there was a binder full of a bunch of high price stamps that he could make money on . I was shocked he was bidding on a bunch of FAKES and FORGERIES as if they were real stamps .
LESSON LEARNED ,I was paying for his stupidity on my lot to the auction house . I learned from now on if your selling collection lots salt in a few fakes you never know if the next bidder is seeing real stamps and will bid it up .