Pretty French Colonies Forgeries

I ran across these pages and thought they were interesting, but I don't understand why someone would go to the trouble of creating these forgeries?. I quickly cataloged the New Caledonia page and the total for the whole page was about $200, why creat forgeries?

I think your way off about the catalog value if they were real , as forgeries they sell for 2 or 3 dollars each if sold as collections according to recent sales on ebay

Yeah, the New Caledonia page (if genuine) would catalog for a lot more than $200.

The Gabon page though, might be around $200 if authentic.

These were produced to satisfy collector demand a century and more ago, and, judging by the numbers you see, I imagine a lot were sold and money was made. I don't know if these also went into the packet trade, which would have been another lucrative avenue.

Most forgeries were not of rarities and high value stamps like Sperati's operation.

Printing was cheap back when, particularly quick and dirty bad printing. The French Colonies Navigation & Commerce/Type Groupe forgeries here, now attributed to Hirschberger, are good quality but were probably still offered relatively cheaply vs. genuine. Plus a collector would also think they were getting a complete set with no effort.

There are Japan forgeries of the imperf 1946-7 issue, where the genuine are still minimal value stamps today. Low values of that issue were forged for the packet trade. So the forgers and packet makers both made some money.

We have the modern US coil forgers on ebay and elsewhere today. One 55c stamp is cheap, but with 100 in a roll and an offering of several rolls at once, things start adding up. And the suckers really like saving all that money vs. face value without caring or suspecting anything might be wrong.

I don't know how you cataloged the first two New Caledonia stamps. Look again and you'll find the fake overprints to be on the wrong stamps.

I noticed the 1st 2 stamps that didn't match the catalog, I thought they were easy to catalog, 0$ is easy. It makes me wonder how many forgeries are in the average WW collection. I used to think 10% might be about right but now I think it's higher than that.