Fake Or Forgery In My Collection?

Why would anyone make a forgery of a stamp that is not even listed in a catalogue?
I call this stamp a fake not a forgery!
Switzerland 1919 Air Optd with wings and propeller (in red). Only the 30c and 50c exists!


I found this stamp in my collection,

Hello Rene, and welcome to the forum. Good find - how long have you had this?


Peter

Simple answer ---You take a 5 cent stamp and you already got a rubber stamp to overprint the 30 and 50 cent. stamps .So you bang out the overprint and list it on E-bay for $3.00 and Floortrader will buy it for his forgery collection .....then your rolling in the money .

My forgery collection contain a lot of all the common garbage of the past 30 years ,as far as I can tell nobody is building a reference source of all the new junk out there ,every reference book is already 40 years old .The forgery websites are all about the old classic stuff.

Sounds like this Floortrader guy needs to do some scanning and collaborate with Don to get a 'new junk reference' database published online for the hobby.
Don

I'll second Don's request to Floortrader! A new database would be excellent, especially if the database points out *why* the stamp is a fake or forgery not just that it is the case.

Dan

On the kudos-side of things (I hesitate to even give any kudos to a forger), the forger got the size/position/angle/color of the overprint good-ish. On the (flatulent sound)-side of things, he messed up the impression - the edges of the overprint are muddy and not nearly as sharp as the genuine examples. Oh yeah, and he really screwed it up by using the wrong stamp. It is hard to tell from the scan, but I'll bet the forged overprint is on top of the cancel - another (flatulent sound).

A- for effort. D+ for execution. Unless, of course, you want to give him an F right off the bat for doing a forgery. Yeah, he gets an F.

More of a fantasy piece than a fake/forgery since nothing is being imitated.

This 2010 Rumsey sale of the Carl Walske collection of fakes and forgeries had an incredible scope and quantity of material:

https://www.rumseyauctions.com/auctions/sale/36

When you look at how many fakes and forgeries are out there it can make you a bit queasy.

As dumb as it sounds, I don't understand the difference between a fantasy and a cinderella. Help?

A Cinderella is any item that LOOKS like a stamp. A Fantasy is usually a "stamp" from a non existent country, or a stamp like this one, a not issued creation from a country that does exist. So any label for anything is properly called a Cinderella, but a fantasy usually has a value and a country name and looks like a legitimately issued stamp.

Shermae thats a good question. to add to Revcollectors answer a fake is strictly speaking a stamp designed to fool stamp collectors and a forgery is meant to fool the postal services and get through the mail. Though the latter two definitions get mixed up so much that the definition is almost useless.
Stanley Gibbons do a book called Stamp collecting: Philatelic terms illustrated. I find it brilliant for finding out what phrases that get bandied about actually mean. The dictionary is English but has american phrases like tag, and tongs. I think it would still work for people who speak North American English.

The usual terminology is that a forgery is meant to defraud collectors and a counterfeit is produced to defraud the postal service. A fake can be either.

"The usual terminology is that a forgery is meant to defraud collectors and a counterfeit is produced to defraud the postal service. A fake can be either".

This is what I was always told.

Although a counterfeit can also be produced to defraud the revenue service as well; there are several counterfeit US revenues created for that purpose.

"Forgery is the crime of producing, making, or adapting objects or documents with the intent to defraud another. Counterfeiting is making or creating an unauthorized imitation of a genuine article with the intent to defraud."

Philately has always had a specialized vocabulary, which goes back 180 years, more or less. Dictionary definitions do not always specifically agree with that vocabulary.