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I recently read a recent article on quasi-legal stamps directed at collectors.

Many of these stamps are issued in the name of countries that are too poor to offer legal resistance to the fraud. In some cases, this is done with the blessing of the postal authority of these poor states. Many of these nations are UPU members. Examples mentioned in the article were some former Soviet republics, some African nations, and some British overseas territories.

Apparently, the gimmick is for a corporation (usually in Europe) to offer 'free' production of stamps for the country. What they get for this service, is a legal contract to print immense quantities of stamps, send a miniscule amount to the nation in question for postal use, and sell the remainder to anyone dishonest enough to buy them.

They hit the topical market, and are received enthusiastically by young collectors who know only that they are buying stamps from a well known dealer. (I know that many other dealers are appalled by this practice.) There is much more at stake than simply buying worthless stamps.

By supporting dealers who support this fraud, collectors are actually undermining their own hobby. I am not directing this post at any specific company, dealer, nation, or person, but simply to highlight this fraudulent practice and the prevalence of it.

I hesitate to name specific nations as I don't know the whole story, but I will be shy of stamps from: The Truicial States, African States with a recent history of war, obscure places depicting persons/events with which they have no legitimate connection.

Doesn't surprise me in this day and age.

So what we have in effect are corporations issuing stamps. Have you seen those pretty commemoratives toshiba is coming out with? Strictly limited to only 300 "printing" days at their mega-factories in china!

Here is the website I got much of the information from;
http://www.pwmo.org/articles/rough-trade.htm

If anyone can debunk the information presented here, it would be great, as many of the nicest topical stamps hail from these places. Unfortunately, most of what is on this website seems to ring true

Islander2 - you should stay away from the junk and concentrate on Canada. There's more than enough material to keep you busy for years - a copy of the Unitrade catalogue will show you that.

Thanks for the advice AJpower. I do have a unitrade catalogue, and I am focusing on Canadian, Newfoundland, and United States stamps in my collecting. However, I am collecting thematically now,(World War II) from countries that were directly/diliberatly involved in the conflict.

The practice mentioned in the OP is far worse than simply flooding the world with CTO's from communist countries. It is not merely unscrupulous postal authorities making money from souvenir sheets of worthless stamps. (If it is, Canada is somewhat guilty too).

In the OP the issue is not so much with the countries themselves as the companies "hired" by them. Most CTO's from Czekosolvakia are worthless, but they are honestly worthless.
Contrast this with stamps issued for a state which does not even exist, or in which nearly everyone is half starved and dying of AIDS.

The crooks present their wares as being not only legitimate, but often rare or highly valuable.
Easily spotted if you have been collecting for a while, but for youngsters who collect (I've got two of them) these are fascinating and attractive items.

Will such Issues appear in the known Catalogs like Scott or SG ?

Some are listed, some are not. I was just looking at a series of stamps from Manama - Scott and Gibbons did not list these, though Michels did. Same goes for another series I looked at from Equatorial Guinea.

I don't have any world-wide catalogues, and the only reason I found out about these particular examples was by the honesty of the person who put them on line.

If you wish to reference the series I just referred to, they are Michel #972-979
for the Equatorial Guinea, and Michel #213-219 for the Manama. Sadly there is not always an easy answer to the question "is this stamp legitimate?"

Seemingly, the only way to avoid this particular scam is to be very sceptical about certain stamp issuing countries, and try to focus on eras that pre-date the 1970's.

That said, you will run into forgeries in any era, but that's another story.

http://www.postbeeld.com/en/fsc/home/ offers an explanation as to why they have decided to omit some countries from their listings.