CLASSIC LATIN AMERICA

News, commentary and opinion on Central and South American philately

General Philately

Fakes, forgeries…and buying online

Buenos Aires stamp forgeries
Examples of forged copies of the ‘Barquito’ issue from Buenos Aires

In the earlier years of philately, faking and forging was big business. In many ways, it still is, with money to be made by unscrupulous types offering dodgy imitations of current issues on eBay at knockdown prices.

But in the first one-hundred years of philately, much of this activity was targeted primarily at philatelists who needed to fill a space in their album and were either unable to find or afford a genuine copy.

Demand creates supply and it wasn’t long before the market was awash with the output of forgers such as Fournier, Spiro, de Thuin (particularly in Latin America), Sperati and many others.

Jean de Sperati
The master forger, Jean de Sperati. He produced an estimated 566 forgeries from around 100 countries and frequently fooled the philatelic establishment

Their legacy remains to this day…and much of it can still be found online, littering the listings of eBay, Hipstamp and Delcampe.

Don’t get me wrong; all three of these sites are wonderful resources and have completely changed the nature of philately and how collectors buy and obtain new items. I use them to buy and sell like most CLA readers and the philatelic world would be a lot poorer without them.

The changing dynamics of buying and selling

But the whole dynamic of selling has changed dramatically. Never has caveat emptor been more appropriate than it is today.

It wasn’t that long ago that to fill a space in an album, you needed to have a relationship with a handful of trusted dealers. These were full time professionals whose livelihoods depended on the integrity of their advice, their stock and the stamps they sold you.

Reputation was king and if they pulled a fast one then they didn’t stay trusted for very much longer.

But it also meant choice was limited. You could wait forever trying to fill that gap and frustrated collectors would often take a short cut by accepting spacefillers or forgeries until something better came along.

Fast-forward to today and that (slightly smaller) band of trusted dealers are still very much in existence. Except this time, their efforts are supplemented by thousands of online sellers.

Some are collectors simply looking to offload duplicate stock whereas many are speculative generalists, looking to turn a buck on breaking down collections or accepting albums ‘on consignment’ and supplementing income through part time ‘dealing’.

All of which is perfectly fine, as long as you have your wits about you and proceed with caution.

eBay logo
Caveat emptor…

The three types of online seller

There are no hard and fast, black and white rules but I approach listings from sellers I do not know by informally placing them into the following broad categories:

a) single items from specialists (focused on a country, region, era, theme, type etc). Whether listed by a traditional dealer or enthusiast, these will often have a very good chance of being accurately described and qualified as genuine.

b) single items from generalists. I approach these with caution. That’s not to say that the item isn’t likely to be genuine but you need to question whether the seller has sufficient knowledge of their subject matter and has done the research to confirm the integrity of the item.

The earlier the stamp, the more due diligence is usually necessary. Buying at 10% of catalogue is all very well until you find out that what you have purchased is not all that it was cracked up to be.

c) albums, collections and accumulations. Unless the collection is specialised, the odds are you are going to get a few fakes and forgeries within the mix. Even full time dealers are not usually going to have the bandwidth to go through a general collection item by item to fully warrant the genuineness of each stamp.

Most general collections (the ‘one of each’ variety) are likely to contain a few dubious offerings. Bear in mind that this in no way should reflect negatively on the seller. Buying a collection over the internet is always going to be something of a lottery and where you lose out on the odd forgery, you may well gain on an overlooked perf or watermark variety.

Nicaragua 1932 overprint
Reprints also need your attention. In this example, the Nicaragua 1932 Managua earthquake issue is on the wrong paper: thin and hard instead of soft and porous

Unfortunately there are a few bad apples out there that are purposefully trying to hoodwink the unwary. Caution is particularly needed with certain ‘proofs’ which may have been knocked out by someone with a sophisticated printer and the intent to deceive.

Ultimately, unless you are buying from a reputable source, the responsibility lies with you, the buyer, to build your personal knowledge bank and ensure that you’re getting the real deal.

For more information on identifying fakes and forgeries, take a look at the Resources section.

Philatelic Societies – a review

FIAF logo
FIAF represents philatelic societies and associations across the Americas

I’ve recently updated the Resources pages. Part of this exercise was to revisit links to philatelic societies and investigate others that I wasn’t so familiar with.

In reviewing so many sites in a relatively short space of time, you quickly get a feel for what seems to separate the well-organised societies from those that ‘could do better’.

Don’t get me wrong. Running a philatelic society for the benefit of its members – most often staffed by unpaid volunteers – is a noble pursuit and not one that I am in a position to criticize.

But that’s not say improvements can’t be made.

The importance of the webmaster

The roles of treasurers, secretaries and presidents are predominant in most of these organisations but the role that often gets overlooked in importance and relevance today is that of the webmaster.

This is the individual that effectively presents the image of the society to the world. Creating the right impression is the difference between a basic ‘we exist’ presence versus that of a forward-looking organisation, keen to recruit new members.

It’s surprising how many websites don’t fully convey the features and benefits that could draw in new blood and help to swell the ever diminishing coffers. A good webmaster, with the right copy and eye to design can make a big difference as to how a society is perceived by the outside world and hence its ability to recruit new, fee-paying members.

A journal index can make all the difference

One of the primary member benefits that is most often overlooked is the journal index.

Many societies have published journals for decades. Within this literature lies much of the wisdom of past members who will have written in depth on subject matter as relevant today as it was when originally published.

The first step is in making these back issues easily accessible.

Many societies have achieved this by making past issues available online, perhaps holding back recent editions for ‘members only’ to encourage new sign-ups. But it’s the creation of a searchable index of these historic volumes that enables the collector to pinpoint articles quickly and easily: this is where the real benefit lies.

Some societies have embraced this approach and made a huge difference to the value of the data that is buried within these journals.

No doubt this is a Herculean task for some but for others, much of the work may have already been done by referring back to previous paper-based indices and simply providing a digital version.

The internet can also be used to leverage society auctions; a significant member benefit if they can be done postally and attract collectors from other countries into becoming members.

This enables collectors to dispose of pieces to an appreciative audience, particularly the esoteric and unusual which may get overlooked or unidentified in a more general auction environment.

Overall though, it is heartening to see that most countries are still supporting at least one philatelic society (multiple societies in some cases), continuing to publish useful literature and offering relevant and ‘value-added’ services to their members. With online translation tools, language is far less of a barrier than before and should be leveraged to encourage wider participation.

Whichever country you collect, consider supporting the relevant society.

You need each other.

Which country has the world’s worst postal service?

Which countries should you avoid shipping to?

Let’s say you put a few items up for auction on eBay and one lucky winner has an address in Haiti.

Would you post it using regular mail?

If you’d just read the Universal Postal Union’s annual report on the global ranking of postal services around the world, probably not.

Each year, the UPU assesses the postal services from 173 countries to come up with an indexed score and ranking to show how individual countries have performed.

Each country is ranked on four key measures:

  • Reliability – operational efficiency
  • Reach – global connectivity
  • Relevance – the demand for postal services
  • Resilience – diversification of revenue streams and ability to innovate

These four metrics combine to create a score which then determines its country ranking, such that each country can be compared with its peers.

And the award for Worst Postal Service goes to…

Enough of the preamble. Who’s at the bottom of the table?

164th – Iraq

165th – Dominica

166th – Guinea

167th – St. Vincent

168th – Mozambique

169th – Samoa

170th – Liberia

171st – Haiti

172nd – Sao Tome and Principe

173rd – Tuvalu

A few predictable names in there but ironic to see St. Vincent so low in the table, given the fact that it is the third most prolific stamp issuer on the planet (over 5500 new issues since 1950!).

How about the top ten?

In order of postal excellence, the best performers are: Switzerland, Netherlands, Japan, Germany, France, Poland, Singapore, USA, UK and Austria.

How does Latin America do?

As this is a Latin American blog it would be remiss of me to not mention the performance of the twenty republics. Out of 173 countries, in descending order, we have:

44th – Brazil

66th – Colombia

72nd – Chile

76th – Mexico

78th – El Salvador

90th – Costa Rica

99th – Peru

101st – Argentina

105th – Dominican Republic

114th – Honduras

119th – Panama

123rd – Paraguay

125th – Uruguay

127th – Ecuador

134th – Cuba

151st – Venezuela

163rd – Nicaragua

171st – Haiti

Surprised? What you expected?

Conspicuous by their absence are Bolivia (whose postal service has been in turmoil in the past few years, culminating in a new institution being formed in March this year) and Guatemala (also suffering from protracted disruption and suspension of services).

This exercise has been undertaken since 2013 and each year, comparisons can be made against prior year to see how individual countries are performing and how they move up and down the rankings. Quite how relevant the table will become in future years is open to question though, as stamp issuance ceases, mail volumes decline and delivery services are more reliant on the private sector. Witness the aforementioned Bolivia and Guatemala…

For those that want to dig a bit deeper or view the entire list, you can read the full report here.