Modern Thai Forgeries Modern Thai Forgeriesby Wirat Limpaiboon
(Pictures and captions by Peter Iber)
I would like to draw members’ attention to the appearance on eBay of a large number of forgeries of Thai postage and revenue stamps, and of philatelic material of other countries. These forged items are offered by a vendor using the name ATDINVEST who uses the eBay Private Auction service, which means the names of the bidders remain anonymous.
Each item is clearly described by the vendor on eBay as being forgeries. He writes:
The finest authentic reproductions of genuine stamps in philatelic history. a new expression of art and beauty. There is no limit to what ATDINVEST can do for the philatelic community. Always great values for the avid collector. The greatest forgeries that have ever been offered. Extraordinary forgery to be used as reference material. The final source for true forgeries. always a masterpiece art-forgery for the knowledgeable collector. These are philatelic forgeries with no postal or monetary value. |
Monogram essay. Red
is too cherry (also below blue is too deep). In real life
these are imperf. Here is where the danger lies. Cut off the perfs on the
orange one and you have plate position "a" which is very hard to tell from
the real one if you aren't very familiar with these stamps. Paper is wrong
but who will know on ebay.
Orange mongram essay.
The illustrations show a wide range of quality from poor to good. The colour is most often a give-away: the colours are not usually the same as the genuine. One doesn't know the quality of the source image. However, Peter Iber notes that the blue agriculture stamp, below, is dangerously like the original.
Monogram essay, see note above.
The forgeries are most probably laser printed. Perhaps only one image is made and multiplied on a computer to produce a multiple item.
R35: It should be orange, not red orange.
The perforations are another area of concern. The block illustrated shows uneven perforations. Some blocks have perforations not found on the orginals! The perforations can then be trimmed off thereby providing an imperforate stamp.
R34: The colour is close to the
original, but these are common and so no real problem.
I’ve noticed that only a few of the lots offered attracted bids. This is reassuring. While the vendor states that the forgeries are for study, there is no mark [such as FAUX or FACSIMILE] on the individual items that indicate they are forgeries. It is entirely conceivable that the forgeries might be offered and/or sold as genuine. Members should be alert to these forged items and inform their collector friends – who do not belong to any of the Thai philatelic societies – of these forgeries.
A6i: Very dangerous.
The colour is very close to the original. Perfs should be 13½.
This one is also very expensive so could easily cause problems in the market place.
Members with computers wanting more information on these forgeries should do a search for ATDINVEST on Google or some other search engine. The history of these forgeries and of the vendor is extensive and troubling.
R5: General revenue and it should be ochre so no problem here.
The catalog numbers below the pictures refer to Peter Iber's book, Revenue Stamps of Thailand, 2nd edition.
(This is an expanded article that first appeared in Thai Times, August 2003)