Faked And Altered United States Stamps By Bill Weiss

One of the things that the late Bill Weiss and I often discussed was the need to assist hobbyists make better informed buying decisions. While this has always been an important consideration, it has taken on even more consequence in the internet age.

Just before he passed, Bill was working on an article which compiled information on all the US altered, faked, and counterfeit stamps that had crossed his desk over the years. He was just finishing the article when his cancer interceded. I had been helping where I could and have now put finishing touches (formatting, spelling/grammar corrections, layout) on it. It is now published here
http://www.stampsmarter.com/Learnin...dStamps.html

Don

This is an incredibly valuable contribution! Thank you so much.

Thank you Don. I am sure this be a great help to many collectors.

Well done, Don!

thank you for your efforts

That is very impressive. But after reading every line of the article in one go, plus squinting at the images, I have a headache and now I have to go lie down. So many small details! There are a lot of people, apparently, looking to cheat other collectors, aren't there?

And to be honest, while I can readily see some of the issues like perfs that have been cut off pretty badly in some instances, or very poorly made fakes that almost scream "Fake!," in other cases it is really hard to tell the fake from the real stamp. Most amazing are the inverted center fakes. It's hard to even imagine cutting out the center of a real stamp, inverting it, and reattaching it, or pasting an inverted center over a real center. If you don't look carefully at your stamps, though, I suppose you could get fooled. A very fine article. Thanks very much for this.

Don ... Let me add my thanks to you for making this article available. While I never met Bill Weiss, I do remember that he was always willing to help a novice collector. It still saddens me to realize that he is really gone.
John

Marvelous work, and lots of it there. Don.
Well done you and Bill.