Tuesday 9 February 2021

New postage rates bring wider opportunities to use 1st class forgeries.

With little news on new stamps these days, it seems that every day something new comes to us in the way of forgeries.

Today an email arrived from a customer in Ontario, Canada, who had a letter from the Chester area, which was delivered in just three days!  That in itself is worth remarking on.   Here's the letter:

Letter from Chester to Ontario delivered in 3 days, postage rate £1.70.

 

The very white of the head points to a likely forgery, even allowing for scanning variations, but the close-up shows this to be a well-known and widespread forgery, with reversed lettering:

Forged 1st class stamp with alternate lines of 'iridescent' printing mirrored.

Somebody remarked earlier in a comment that the new 1st class rate was very useful for airmail rates.  This enables the users of these to easily and totally pay for many of their overseas sendings using only 1st class forgeries.

The £1.70 rate for European letters to 100g, Worldwide letters to 20g (and postcards) uses two of them.

The £2.55 rate for Worldwide letters 21-100g uses three of them.  What could be more simple.

Whilst in no way applauding this fraud, it does give overseas collectors the opportunity to acquire some different postal history!



13 comments:

  1. So, do the sorting machines not recognise these as forgeries? I thought the coating on the stamps was supposed to be a security measure?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. They do, but chuck untoward things into stillages (Yorks) which are then hurriedly sorted by hand and (unless the stamps look awry to the naked eye) they will be deilivered.

      Delete
  2. Interesting comment about the letter taking three days to make it to Canada. Last month, I received the Celebrate Great Britain miniature sheet, and according to the dispatch note, it took two days to get to me in Mississauga (just west of Toronto). At the same time, a pair of stamp booklets I ordered from Canada Post, took two weeks to get to me.

    ReplyDelete
  3. With all the forgeries floating around on the web, how will foreign dealers act, will they innocently purchase what they think are new/different versions and then sell them as genuine?

    ReplyDelete
  4. I've had several recent small packages to Canada delivered within a few days as well.
    Further proof that mail is not handled in the order it is received, which of course we all know already.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Has anybody made a list of all the forgeries yet?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. The Modern British Philatelic Circle has been publishing and continues to publish new information.

      But there is no fully illustrated list yet, only an index of previous reports. You should join!

      Delete
  6. Books of forged 12x1st class M20L/MTIL stamps have appeared on ebay

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. eBay number and link please?

      Delete
    2. 12x1st class M20L/MTIL
      eBay item number:194520668550
      ://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/194520668550?hash=item2d4a55d986:g:lMYAAOSwQRxhm2mw

      Delete
  7. Books of forged 12x2nd class M20L/MTIL stamps have appeared on ebay
    eBay item number: 265497661971
    https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/265497661971?hash=item3dd0e4d213:g:A8gAAOSwXzBhwed1
    DP

    ReplyDelete
  8. also
    https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/194753744434?hash=item2d583a4e32:g:NZwAAOSwXAVh6a97

    ReplyDelete
  9. I see the £1.05 stamps are back on ebay
    eBay item number:294762618926
    https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/294762618926?hash=item44a138a02e:g:YigAAOSweElh7dEV

    ReplyDelete

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