A recent alert was issued to hobbyists, dealers, and auction firms by the Vincent Graves Greene Philatelic Research Foundation (VGG) in Toronto about a variety of bogus proof images of Canadian stamps being sold on eBay and Facebook Marketplace. The VGG’s Ted Nixon, head of the foundation’s expertizing committee, along with foundation President Garfield Portch, gave a presentation at the National Postage Stamp and Coin Show where they talked about the values that are being forged, and how people can spot the differences between what is real and what is fake. To the delight of the audience, they passed around a three-ring binder with samples of about 30 of the fraudulent items. “What we’re talking about here is essentially die proofs of the issued stamps and the essays, predominantly from the 1897–98 ‘Maple Leaf’ and ‘Numeral’ issues of Canada (the 10-cent ‘Maple Leaf’ die and the 20-cent ‘Numeral’). That’s what most of them are, but there’s more than that,” Nixon warned. “They’re also doing the three-penny beaver (there’s a block of them), the New Brunswick composite die, the Queen Victoria, and the Bradbury Wilkinson series of essays — they’ve done those as well. Other items that have surfaced are four-cent, 15-cent, and 50-cent ‘Numeral’ essays — values that were never issued! These are proof and essay images, they are not gummed, perforated stamps.” Continue reading →
It was these three die proofs submitted to the VGG that the expertizing committee uncovered them as forgeries. See pages 16-17 for slides of a recent presentation made at the National Postage Stamp and Coin Show, revealing why the die proofs are fakes.
