There's an auction listing featuring a sizable collection of 19th century worldwide stamps mounted in a 19th century album. Some of them appear to be rare. Some very rare ones are probably forgeries, and individual stamps always have to be checked. But all that said, is it likely that an old album like this might be LESS likely to have lots of forgeries than a modern one??
Less likely NO. Master forgers have been around since the day those stamps were issued. Collections have been picked over and salted. Assume nothing. How many certificates are there? Caveat emptor!
Being a 19th century album would not, imho, make a difference in the amount of forgeries. If the vendor provides a detailed large image it helps.There are some good websites that assist in the detection of forgeries. If it is a very rare stamp I become more alert it to being a forgery if it is not accompanied by a certificate.
Forgeries are everywhere. The best way to tell if a collection is loaded with forgeries is to be an expert on a few countries. If there are forgeries there, then you can almost bet that the collector did not care or did not know very much about what they were collecting. It does not always work that way, but it is a metric that I use to evaluate a collection.
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Posted 03/27/2024 6:29 pm
