Counterfeit stamps

custardy

Was talking to a PHG the other day (postie who works on parcel collections etc)

Apparently a notable increase in items being surcharged for counterfeit stamps.
Been a couple of local cases of people buying from bricks & mortar shops but being sold fakes. (these shops are now under investigation)

So take care if you are buying cheaper stamps.

Got them to send me an email about how to spot them.Email text below (I seem to have uploaded the pics in reverse order)

In the first picture you will see that the stamp is an orangey reddy colour rather than the vibrant red and across the Queens shoulder area the writing (Royal Mail print) is a sort of silvery colour.
The silvery writing colour and the orangey colour lets us know this is fake.

In the second picture in front of the Queens fringe you can see the word Mail. This is where we can see it is fake as the word MAIL should have a number in the centre of it (look at a real stamp and you will see this).

The third picture is where the number 13 has been printed into the word MAIL but we know this is a fake stamp because of the glossy and bold print of the ROYAL MAIL wording across the stamp. This writing should always be smaller and less obvious (compare this one to a real stamp).

forgotmyname

Got the pictures numbered incorrectly?

1st picture is actually the 3rd?


Notice that 2 of them have MTIL in the top right corner also.

custardy

forgotmyname wrote: »

Got the pictures numbered incorrectly?

1st picture is actually the 3rd?


Notice that 2 of them have MTIL in the top right corner also.

As I said,

Got them to send me an email about how to spot them.Email text below (I seem to have uploaded the pics in reverse order)

emmbrook

There's said to be lots of these on eBay, allegedly printed in Turkey. The sort of listings selling multiples of 100 first class sheets of stamps. It's also been suggested that many of the 'unfranked' stamps for sale may actually be counterfeit in an attempt to justify the low prices.

Not to be confused with dealers selling excess stock where you will have a mixture of designs etc. This is legitimate and can save 20-30% off face value if you buy enough.

kalsha

forgotmyname wrote: »

Notice that 2 of them have MTIL in the top right corner also.

I think that is the source code you are referring to. T is when the stamp comes from a book of Twelve.

gardner1

At the end of the day on first glance they are very good

Gary123456790

The question is how many high quality fakes are there that they can't spot? Long term it is clearly very bad news for Royal Mail, but how do they stop this without stamps costing too much to print?

I sometimes use very old stamps, the are genuine just old, I always wonder how they know they are real, and am worried that perhaps my mum's birthday card might get delayed because they think its not a real stamp, when its just 30 years old or more !

NBLondon

Here's what a stamp collecting blog I know says about the matter:

https://blog.norphil.co.uk/2018/08/royal-mails-latest-revenue-proection.html

https://blog.norphil.co.uk/2018/05/forged-and-reused-stamps-how-to-spot.html

Which mentions Gary's dilemma.... I too have bought older stamps on eBay (below face value :money:) and re-used them on birthday cards but never heard of any problems with them.

RFW

Gary123456790 wrote: »

I sometimes use very old stamps, the are genuine just old, I always wonder how they know they are real, and am worried that perhaps my mum's birthday card might get delayed because they think its not a real stamp, when its just 30 years old or more !

If they're mass counterfeiting they'll only do it with current stamps. Old stamps would likely be easier to spot as fakes especially if a lot suddenly appeared on the market.

the_lunatic_is_in_my_head

I'm surprised Royal Mail aren't doing away with stamps for anything other than letters, with all the options to obtain postage now they seem pretty redundant for larger letters and parcels.

NBLondon

RFW wrote: »

If they're mass counterfeiting they'll only do it with current stamps. Old stamps would likely be easier to spot as fakes especially if a lot suddenly appeared on the market.

The problem some foresee is that the older stamps don't have the anti-counterfeit features - meaning that a perfectly valid stamp from the 80s or 90s might be mistakenly detected as counterfeit by an over-zealous or under-trained RM employee. Hence the recipient gets dinged for a fee.

Of course, RM should be detecting actual fakes - which are taking revenue away from them - and taking steps that those who are knowingly distributing them are getting visits from police.