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AUSTRALIA
1901-1912. Commonwealth of Australia???
BEWARE
INFLUX OF FORGERIES ON THE AUSTRALIAN MARKET!
Congratulations to both Stamp
News and Chris Ceremuga for publishing an outstanding article
on recent forgeries coming onto the Australian market. (See "Stamp
News" April 1999 edition).
There has been great reluctance over
the years by responsible bodies in Australian philately to inform the
collecting public as to the existence of forgeries.
I completely agree with Chris that
it is better to inform both collectors and dealers as soon as possible,
rather than sweep the matter under the mat.
Stamp News has a long history of
keeping the public informed and the Ceremuga article is very much part of
this tradition, and surely worth every cent of a subscription to Stamp
News.
A similar very detailed article
appeared in the Australian Commonwealth Collectors Club Bulletin.
Other specialist societies of which I am a member, such as the Papuan
Philatelic Society, regularly inform their members. Subscriptions
to these specialist societies are usually very modest and well worth the
cost.
In Europe it is part of the
philatelic culture for certain types of material to be always accompanied
by a certificate. Hopefully the same attitude will develop here in
Australia. It simply means that the forger is stopped in their tracks as
the informed collector simply will not buy items that have been subject to
forgery without certificate. This in turn means that dealers and auction
houses who never bothered with certificates previously, will find that
they won't be able to sell such items without a certificate.
In Australia we are fortunately
placed in having the excellent services of the Royal Philatelic
Society of Victoria Expertising Committee, and also one of the
leading forensic companies "Scientific Document Services Pty
Ltd" who had a stand at Australia '99. In fact a few weeks
earlier I had purchased a copy of SG D3a, the double surcharge
Papua New Guinea postal due from a Melbourne auction who insisted
that the double overprint variety was genuine. It had in fact been offered
twice and I was pretty certain that it was a forgery.
This was firstly confirmed by the Royal Philatelic Society of
Victoria Expertising Committee. Scientific Document
Services were able to confirm this immediately by infra-red spectrometry
comparison with a genuine overprint.
Prospective purchasers of items
offered by dealers and auction houses without certificate can always ask
for "an extension", in which case the dealer or auction house is
required to obtain a certificate of genuineness. Once the item is proved
genuine, of course the certificate will always accompany the item to
safeguard future purchasers.
There are two minor points of
caution. The forger will often "seed" forged rarities in an
otherwise ordinary collection. In the last
year I have seen quite a number of very ordinary collections being offered
in Sydney and Melbourne auctions with, surprise, surprise, a Papua New
Guinea D1 or the £1 Robes overprinted "Specimen" or the
inevitable mint set of Kingsford Smith O.S. overprints.
Again, if the auctioneer is not prepared to offer an extension on these
types of items, then don't buy them.
In the case of certificates, it is
best to stick to the three expertising authorities mentioned by Chris
Ceremuga in his article as they are familiar with the issues of
Australasia and the South Pacific.
For the
readers information these recommended authorities are:
British Philatelic
Expertising (BPA) in London,
Peter Holcombe in Switzerland,
and Royal Philatelic Society of Victoria (Australia)
Any
queries with regard to this article, or whether an item you have purchased
is genuine??
©Robin Linke
Dealing in fine stamps since 1968 |
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