VGg Certifications Service With Forgerie

When you submit a stamp to the vgg for her opinion and their opinion on the stamp is the stamp is a forgerie.
They return it with NO cert to the owner or they do a pink cert for it ? Pink certificate with forgerie mention ?

I do not have any idea what VGG is ( Vincent Greene G......? ) but should it not make sense to ask them the question?

Peter

Hi auditnelson1
When any item is submitted to the Greene Foundation it will be examined and returned with one of three possible outcomes:
1. The item is genuine in all respects. The item will be returned with a green certificate stating that opinion.
2. If the item is not genuine, the item will be returned with a pink certificate stating the reason that the item is not good (such as regummed, reperforated, rebacked or margins added or fraudulently altered in an attempt to create a more desireable item)
3. No opinion is an occasional result that arises because we cannot prove that an item is genuine or otherwise. This often happens with things such as missing colours where we suspect that a colour has been removed but cannot prove that opinion. In such a case the item is returned with a letter explaining our rationale and also returning the expertizing fee.

Garfield Portch
Vice President
Vincent Graves Greene Philatelic Research Foundation

Thx for the answer. When you said 'genuine' or not genuine thats mean altered or unaltered? Or real and forgerie? Sorry my English understanding isn't perfect

Pardon me to take advantage of your thread but the answer provided raises an other questions for me. If you have a stamp that is regummed, would it be better to remove the gum to get a green certificate instead of the pink one ? I understand that a pink certificate equates to an altered stamp but the alteration done by regumming can easily be undone and the stamp brought back to its original state.
I thought that a forgery would not yield a certificate as it is not even an altered stamp. In fact, it is not a stamp at all.

Good question !
I have same opinion on forgerie! For me a forgerie logically is return without au color cert...

It's quite complex. Forgeries may, in some circumstances, be more valuable than the original stamp. One could, therefore, have a certificate of a "genuine" forgery by a particular forger. Perhaps this doesn't arise with Canadian postage stamps and thus for the VGF.

I'll let the Greene Foundation speak for itself, but I think forgeries and "once genuine, but now altered" stamps both fall under the category of "pink cert".

Does it not depend on how it is submitted? If I submitted a Fournier forgery as a Fournier forgery I would expect a clean cert. But if I submitted a Fournier forgery as a real stamp then I would expect a bad cert.
Don

we will wait the answer from Mr Portch if VGG do a pink cert with "FORGERY" in the description for that kind of item.

i just don t understand why forgery worth more in some case than real item... for me forgery just worth nothing but its my 2 cents opinion and preference... never I would put any money for that... Probably they are forgery collector !

Sperati's forgeries in particular fetch high prices - and I'm sure others' work does too. Of course, most are simply worth keeping as a reference.

Don makes a good point.




GeoffHa is absolutely correct some forgeries demand more money than genuine stamps in lots of cases...Remember..They may have not been legal, but HAVE been canceled by Canada Post on covers...And they are as old as the original stamps..Very collectible.

I myself have over 30 forgeries and I will continue to get more as time passes.

Robert

I believe if a forgery were attributable, then the cert could state the attribution but the colour of the cert would still be pink. Again, the Greene will state its position in due course.

I would add that there may be some misunderstanding about "pink" certs. Some feel that pink certs render a stamp nearly worthless; this is a mistaken market perception. The VGGF cert does not concern itself with value, the cert colour is their way of classifying.

The OFFICIAL answer is that any forgery will be given a PINK certificate because it is not a genuine item and it was created to deceive either the post office or a collector. If we are sure that the forgery originated with a 'famous' forger, we would state that fact on the pink certificate. In essence, we state (when we know for sure) that the item is a genuine forgery -- but there is not a chance that it will get a green certificate.

With respect to regumming, we have had collectors wash and remove the gum from a stamp that had received a pink certificate. When re-submitted the stamp was restored to its unaltered condition and given a good (green) certificate stating "unused with no gum - genuine in all respects"

The bottom line is that an item receiving a green certificate MUST be GENUINE IN ALL RESPECTS. NO EXCEPTIONS!

Garfield Portch