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While sorting through poundage that I had acquired I have come across a Canadian 2009 "P" (permanent), Unitrade #2298, Queen Elizabeth II stamp that seems to have missed the tagging step.

The stamp is trimmed on paper with a cancellation running upwards from the lower left of the stamp.

It has a lighter colour than the normal stamps and is missing the tagging and small crowns associated with the tagging. It also seems to have a difference in the Serpentine Die Cut 13.4 perfs ( peak at top left).

The perfs on the stamps are a match to the ones found on the #2324 Serpentine Die Cut 13.4 perfs (valley at top left).

I e-mailed Unitrade as I had not seen it listed in the 2010 Catalogue and the editor, Robin Harris, kindly replied informing me that the 2011 catalogue has a footnote stating that counterfeits exist and this stamp matches the description of the know counterfeits.

I've tried searching the internet but cannot find any other mentions of this or pictures. Is there a market for these other than an oddity and if so what might it be worth? Robin Harris thought that it was a "Nice Find".

Does anyone have any input on this issue?

Drew Thompson

That's a pretty sophisticated forgery, matching the die cuts/perfs and all.

I remember the (39ct?) flag coil in purple, that the lazy forgers printed in sheets and didn't even bother perfing at all, they sold them in imperf sheets.

'Genuine forgeries' (yes I know its redundant) are popular (for collecting that is) and usually make good money. Depends how many are out there. I say genuine forgery in the sense that its from a fairly large print run that got media attention. Not just Joe Blow in his basement running off a few on the colour printer (ie. as often seen with faked ovpts).

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Collecting Mongolia; Thailand; Indo-China; Mourning Covers; OHMS.
My online 'store': http://stampsfromaethelwulf.blogspot.com/

I found three others listed from earlier years but not the 2009. This link http://www.adminware.ca/headlines/counterfeits.htm

shows the $1.05 Deer, $0.49 QEII, and the $1.40 Green Maple leaf stamps as being counterfeits as well. Quite a good article.

Drew

Could you post some much larger scans so we can look closer at the printing method and the perfs please?

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Greg - Looking for Goulburn Australia Cancels and Grangemouth Scotland Cancels and Covers
Member of the S.T.A.M.P Club for Slightly Twisted And Mad Philatelists - Motto: "Bring back the lick!"

I'll try but I'm not very computer litterate. Does anybody know how to resize on Photobucket?

Drew

I can't seem to get the images bigger. Maybe I'm just too tired at the moment. I could e-mail the scan if that would help at all?

Drew

How big did you set the scanner at?
If you scan at 300 or 600dpi you will get a nice big example of the stamps.
If you scan at 100dpi you get about life size.

Before you scan the stamps, check the settings and have the scanner scan at 600dpi.
That will give a nice big scan.
The cut and paste each stamp seperately so you get 2 files.
That way when you load it up here (and the image may be reduced) we still get a nice big close up of each stamp to compare.

If stuck, then scan them at 600dpi and email me, gregdebbieallan[at]hotmail.com
Change the [at] to at symbol.

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Greg - Looking for Goulburn Australia Cancels and Grangemouth Scotland Cancels and Covers
Member of the S.T.A.M.P Club for Slightly Twisted And Mad Philatelists - Motto: "Bring back the lick!"

My printer / scanner shows a max 600dpi but I can not find anyplace to change the settings. I scanned the stamp again last night and e-mailed the scan to you.

Drew

A nice find Drew and it may be worth a bit more than the mint copy of the same issue if presented to a collector of such counterfeits. If this had been on cover it would have realised a higher price, still used on a piece is a good find.
People tend to throw away or dump into a shoe box mixtures of recent definitives for later checking - which is never done (a fact all members will agree with) but there are gems hidden in mixtures. Check the image of my Avtar - it is a piece of a cover with two pairs of 10c Clock imperforated stamps, this I found while searching a mixture. I sent it to Jay Bigalke at Linn's and he got it confirmed and his article appeared on the front page of Linns magazine with a picture of the cover piece and my name mentioned as the owner of the find, then it was included in next year's Scott US Specialized catalog listing but without a price tag as this is not offered for sale so a price could not be established.

Just going through a mix made me famous for a while, I still own this piece of cover and the copy of Linns with the article. Check it out below:

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Always drink upstream from the herd.

Very nice samcam!
I always go through the mixtures as I have time. Currently working on building stock books from 3 beer cases of used that I was recently given. I work afternoon shift so have a lot of time on my hands late at night. That and not having a life helps! )

Drew

Thanks for the appreciation. Have you gone through the denominated and non-denominated Flower coil stamps of Canada??? For every single stamp there are a possible 240 varieties!

All this is explained in Robin Harris's paper available at his website. The top and bottom perforation are different and there are a lot of combinations of these perforations for each stamp - people may call it flyspecking but to reconstruct a complete pane will take some doing.

There is even a note in Unitrade about these die cuts - so all those common Canadian definitives are collectable.

You must have the Darnell catalog of Canadian EFOs before you pursue the mixtures any furthur - there are many gems hidden in Canadian mixtures and most of them are of some value.

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Always drink upstream from the herd.

I have only partially touched on these issues. I am on the lookout for the different variations of diecuts and perforations, be it serpentine, sawtooth or regular perfs from the souvenir sheets. I do use the Unitrade catalogue but have not gotten into all of the different positions on the die cuts and the perf ranges.
Most of the sets I haven't aquired enough of at the moment as I store them in the Vario stock sheets, I get seven in a row across and eight rows deep, double sided. Therefore managing 112 stamps per stock sheet. I check for the tagging and also starter or ender strips on the coils as well as cancells on paper. And in some sets (not the flowers) you also have to check for colour where the position of the stamp has been cut into the surrounding edge of the booklet. The wildlife definitives Fox (1879), Wolf (1880) and Deer (1881) as well as the as well as the Traditional Trades series Jewelery (1928 and Sculpture (1930) come to mind.
Unfortunately there is also a lot of damaged or worthless stamps when you go through that many stamps in a row from poundage.
I like to sort into a single stamp and the compare all of the same stamp when I sort. After sorting comes the debacking and filing into binders.

Drew

From Don Schilling's blog, The Stamp Collecting Round-Up:

"thousands of counterfeit stamps have been seized in the largest postage fraud bust in two decades.

According to an article in The Montreal Gazette by Bradley Bouzane of Postmedia News, "Two people were arrested in Montreal Tuesday after police searched two dozen businesses in that city. Those arrests are linked to three previous arrests in Montreal and Toronto that have led to the seizure of more than 40,000 phoney stamps and about 10,000 authentic stamps that were set for reuse. Charges were also laid Tuesday in connection to the earlier arrests.""

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Ian Billings - Norvic Philatelics GB stamps info: http://www.norphil.co.uk - also /catalog for our ecommerce site, blog.norphil.co.uk, shop.norphil.co.uk and Ian_norvic on twitter

"The Mounties Get Their Men"

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Tue Mar 29 2011

Christine Dobby

In a bid to crack down on counterfeit postage, the Mounties arrested two people in Montreal Tuesday, capping an investigation that saw the seizure of thousands of fake stamps and a total of five arrests.

The operation has been ongoing since May 2010, when an internal investigation by Canada Post raised the possibility of an organized ring dedicated to the sale of counterfeit stamps at work in the Toronto and Montreal areas.

The Royal Canadian Mounted Police said in a statement Tuesday that parallel investigations in both cities revealed that the fake stamps likely came from the same source and all featured the same series of classic Canadian images: the Queen, the Vancouver Olympics and lighthouses.

The forged stamps were sold in convenience stores while reused stamps were sold on the Internet.

The RCMP has seized more than 40,000 counterfeit stamps and 10,000 reused stamps.

Charges have already been filed against two culprits in Toronto and one in Montreal.

The two arrested Tuesday in Montreal could also face charges of trafficking in counterfeit tokens of value and selling stamps without the consent of Canada Post.

http://www.thestar.com/news/article/965569--two-arrested-in-crackdown-on-counterfeit-stamp-ring

There is a lot more of this that goes on than we realize.

It is really very easy for anyone with the right equipment to duplicate modern stamps.

Just about any print shop with professional digital printing equipment can do it.

The biggest outlay is for the die cutting knife- $200.-

Drew:

It was very nice to meet you at the London Stamp Show this weekend. I am finding more and more Canadian collectors at the shows who casually mention something about Stampboards.........which of course makes me jump in with a Hello!

It was quite interesting to see the above stamps. Even with today's technology, kiloware still can reveal many mis-perf errors, print shift errors and tagging errors.

If you get a chance to scan the above stamps at anywhere between 600 and 1200 dpi on your scanner and attach the scans to an email to me, I'll try to post them here with more detail (then send you the steps I followed). If you want, I can send an email to you through the board email system first, so you have the details to reply. My email will allow larger scans to come through, so you don't have to worry about the size of the attachments.

If you want another go yourself, scan the two stamp individually at 600-1200 dpi and then load them into Photobucket. They should come out here as much larger and more detailed.

John A

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Armstrong'sStamps**http://www.armstrongsstamps.ca
Knowledge is Key.....Libraries work!

John:

It was nice to meet you as well and put a face to a name that I have read in here quite often. I had thought of asking in here if anyone was going to the London show but didn't get around to it. Partially because I wasn't sure if I could make it or not.

I am glad that I was able to show you the stamps. I love going through the (pondage) kiloware because you never know what you may find. It also keeps me busy for hours overnight and somewhat out of trouble.

As to the scans, thanks for the offer of help. I have a Kodak printer / scanner and I have no idea what the default scanning dpi is.

I have looked around to try to find where to change the settings but as of the moment have not been able to find anything. I'll probably have to get the manual out.

I haven't really taken the time as other things needed attending to but hopefully in the near future I can get this done.

Drew

Darlington or Chalk River..........

I don't remember seeing any images from Ian on the forgeries, but I'll poke around a bit more when I get the chance.

John A

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Armstrong'sStamps**http://www.armstrongsstamps.ca
Knowledge is Key.....Libraries work!

I had very little free time to buy stuff at the Royal, but I did pick up these recent forgeries on cover:







and possibly I will be getting some of the complete forged booklets.

Interesting ... so what is approx going rate for these on cover?

Rather cheap actually- I paid $10.- each for these.

They seem plentiful, so maybe the police claims of the amount issued are not as exaggerated as I thought.

However, time will tell.

Used in correct period $10 will seem a bargain in 10 years tiime.

Here are images of the recent Lighthouse forgeries.



Besides no tagging and being on a much glossier paper than the genuine, an easy way to spot these is the bottom right die cut perf.

On these the perf points to the right, on genuine it points down.

Of course, I do not have any genuine ones to show alongside

Did you succeed .. love to see those!

Glenn- I have one on the way.

I will post it here as soon as I get it

Merci.

Can't believe they are so cheeky as to forge entire booklets!

Are any for sale over there? I'd like to advertise one on my Rarity Page just for fun!

Canadian dealers certainly will not be allowed to obviously, but from another country no issues.

Full booklets are forged so that they can be sold at local convenience stores.

Here you can buy a booklet of stamps at any local small grocery store, even if they do not have a post counter, so that is now the preferred way to distribute them.

Glen- I will try to get some extra booklets, but will take some time.

Ironically, they are being delayed by the current mail strikes

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Armstrong'sStamps**http://www.armstrongsstamps.ca
Knowledge is Key.....Libraries work!

Mike when you say that on the conterfeit the perf points to the right -- are you talking about the corner one (see below)?



Perhaps I don't know what you mean, but if that is what you are referring to, then it appears that way on all the stamps issued by Canada Post.

Eric- I may be wrong- as I said , I don't have any genuine stamps here

I just stole this image off the net:



Here that perf is part of the bottom row- while on the forgeries it is part of the vertical row of perfs.

Does this make sense?

Of course, maybe not all genuine are cut this way?

I don't think the perf angle is a sign of the forgeries.

But the other anomalies you mentioned are good signs.

Merci.

Just received a few more covers today.

This one is canceled June 01- less than two weeks ago- so stocks of these forgeries are still in circulation in Sherbrooke.



Lots of fun

I guess there are plenty of these if you are still finding recently canceled covers.

They have done a good job at forging these stamps.

Cheers!

A friend just picked up a number of covers with the forged lighthouse stamp.

The forgeries are quite easy to spot as the stamps are very shiny compared to the authentic issue. Under low magnification, the forgeries are very obvious as the appearance of the design is highly pixelated.

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Ken

This might be answered somewhere above, but, is it legal in Canada to own these covers? I think that question would be a very debatable one in Australia.

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Peter
Hawthorn - AFL Premiers 1961, 1971, 1976, 1978, 1983, 1986, 1988, 1989, 1991, 2008.

mikeg -- any news on some booklets for me?

Glen

Hi Glen, Canada post is currently on strike and locked out. It might be delaying the process.

Glen- So far I was able to get only one, and it is from the previous series, not these recent ones.

Once the postal lockout is over I will get on this. I have also been distracted by work- am on a project where the customer is late- so I'm working seven days a week

PeterS- There is nothing wrong with having used copies, and the same should apply anywhere.

Ken Lemke- Do you know if any of the covers are postmarked outside of Montreal?

So far all the covers I have and all I have seen are postmarked at the main sorting station in Montreal, even though the police claim they were also sold in Toronto.

Hi Mikeg

Both covers I saw were from Ontario cities. I'll try to find out which ones.

When my friend showed the covers at our stamp club, I recall a member saying it was unusual to see counterfeits on cover from any place other than Montreal.

As far as buying the counterfeits (for collecting purposes), I saw some on e-bay this past week-end. I think the price was $ 20 for the Lighthouse booklet.

The search parameter was Canada counterfeit in Stamps.

As far as possessing counterfeits, I don't think it's a problem for a collector. The problem comes if you use them for postage.

I've heard that some collectors have used a counterfeit stamp in conjunction with legitimate postage in order to get a post marked cover with a counterfeit. I wouldn't try that myself, besides to me that is purely a contrived philatelic cover.

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Ken

Ken- Thanks

I bought 2 booklets on eBay- I was surprised that my account I had not used for at least 5 years still worked

As you say- many are contrived- that is why I prefer covers addressed to business or government addresses like the ones I show above.

This was by far the biggest forgery operation ever in Canada.

Of course, it was still small compared to what goes on in France

Hi Mikeg

Checked with my friend and he has about 10 covers with the counterfeit lighthouses. He says about half were mailed in Montreal area and half in the Toronto area.

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Ken

mikeg:

I have tried but, none of the local stores carry the counterfeit booklets.

Cheers!

Are you saying it is legal to sell the forged stamps in mint condition in Canada???

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Peter
Hawthorn - AFL Premiers 1961, 1971, 1976, 1978, 1983, 1986, 1988, 1989, 1991, 2008.

PeterS:

The store owners could be aware of it, as to make a profit. But, the buying public would be unaware of the stamps being counterfeit.

Cheers!

What about buying from eBay though?? Price exceeds face and stamps are never likely to be used, but they are still counterfeit and, therefore, fraudulent.

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Peter
Hawthorn - AFL Premiers 1961, 1971, 1976, 1978, 1983, 1986, 1988, 1989, 1991, 2008.

Peter- of course it is not legal for the stores to sell them.

But with such a large quantity having been widely distributed, it would not be surprising if some small grocery stores or gas stations still had them in stock.

After all, there is no way a clerk in a store would know the difference.

Mike, the only way a store could have them is if they bought them from someone other than the Postal authorities, surely? I have to assume the fakes were distributed by going to stores and offering them at a discount to what they would otherwise cost the store from a legitimate source? How else do they get into circulation otherwise (especially in quantity)?

Just out of interest, is there a task force trying to crack down on this? If it was in Australia the Federal Police would be all over it like a rash! Defrauding the revenue in this sort of manner would be a real concern.

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Peter
Hawthorn - AFL Premiers 1961, 1971, 1976, 1978, 1983, 1986, 1988, 1989, 1991, 2008.

Peter- The printers and distributors were arrested in March, and I assume the court proceedings are in progress.

Norvic and Glen posted the stories above.

Fair enough, but I am interested in how the convenience stores could be unwitting participants?

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Peter
Hawthorn - AFL Premiers 1961, 1971, 1976, 1978, 1983, 1986, 1988, 1989, 1991, 2008.