TANZANIA ILLEGAL STAMPS
2010 and 2011

Information and Reference of illegal stamps for Tanzania Dating 2010 and 2011

On November 21, 2011 the postal administration for Tanzania by request to K.J.S. McKeown (Director of Markets Development) posted to the Universal Postal Union a circular warning of the discovery of a number of illegal stamps created with their country name that are on the market. The circular is number 219. You can view it in the linked file below:

UPU Circular Number 219

The circular describes a couple of counterfeit sets that were made in 2011. It was a far cry from what was actually produced in 2011 by the criminals and is still being disbursed on the stamp market to this day. Tanzania was shall we say "late in the game" in reporting the illegal stamps made in their name. I have completed research into the problem and found that there were numerous counterfeits produced in the name of Tanzania starting in 1998 and carrying all the way through to present times.

Another circular was published by the UPU in 2013 in which Tanzania reports on counterfeit stamps in the name of Zanzibar being placed on the market. That will be covered in another section of the study.

To find out somewhat what stamps are real and legitimate for Tanzania you can visit the online catalogs linked below. One should not buy most issues later than the year 1985 unless only paying pennies for them. Issues between 1985 and 2017 should be purchased only after a thorough amount of research is done on the issue(s) of interest. The majority of stamps produced between those years are not anything but made to profit from collectors and are 99% excessive of postal needs.

First, here is a link to the Tanzania Posts Corporation "Posta Let's Go!" website where you can see the year sets they offer. You will see that the stamps offered are generally the non-abusive issues and it is a useful guide to go by in regards to weeding out all the abusive issues made by IGPC.

The Tanzania Posts Catalog of Year Sets

Although extremely incomplete and in my opinion for the Tanzania issues, "corrupted", here is the link to the WNS System search page.

The Universal Postal Union WNS website

I have found the Colnect online catalog to be very helpful.

The Colnect Online Catalog for Tanzania

Some of the illegal stamps are shown in their Cinderella section and noted as such. Still nothing close to what is out there as you will see. The 1976 Railway imperforate souvenir sheet is not a Cinderella as it is simply a "proof" of the issued souvenir sheet Scott Number 65a.

The Colnect Online Catalog Illegal Stamp Section for Tanzania

I have found the Stampworld.com Catalog to be very helpful as well.

The Stampworld Online Catalog for Tanzania

Here we go!

Many of the following illegal stamps can be found as imperforates and as color proof sets as well. Some exist on fake First Day Covers too.
Most times now (2022) the souvenir sheet sets and sheetlet sets are sold individually. Many times the stamps have been removed from the sheetlets and souvenir sheets. All of these "tactics" are used to avoid detection by experts and savvy collectors.

Sellers that call these "private", "locals", "Cinderella's", "unauthorized" are deceiving you. They are illegal stamps produced by a stamp dealer that is bent on ripping you off! Some sellers state "we offer them because they are on the market". Well how about you use a different dealer because that seller is "on the market"? If the stamp societies, auction sites and all other venues kicked these sellers off of their sites then they would have to comply or lose their ability to sell anything.

The following images are free for the use of all to use to alert the public to them. If anyone wants to make a public list of users on eBay, Delcampe and elsewhere who are selling these issues....fine by me since the UPU, PWMO and others appear to have given up or have not been updated in years.

If you have purchased any of these stamps from a dealer or if that dealer offers them, you should avoid that dealer! You will only be supporting illegal stamp makers who are only ripping you off.

2010

It was actually in 2010 that the style of the reported 2011 counterfeit illegal stamps in the name of Tanzania were first made. Circular 219 describes and images a couple sets dating 2011. It does not show us that the "series" was as extensive as it really is. In the research, I found numerous sets that date 2010. As is the usual case with these criminals, they will create a set or a number of sets of counterfeits in the name of a targeted country as a test to see if their is a reaction to them. When there is no "immediate" backlash reaction to them, in the following year they will continue that production. This is the case with Tanzania.

Although these are similar to the British producers style, because namely the 2011 Olympic Games in London counterfeits were produced (as a variety) in sheetlets of 8, I can see they were produced by a different counterfeit producer. Namely the one supposedly in Spain, but evidence in some cases point the origination coming from Lithuania. The sellers of these in the past are rip off dealers based in Russia.

Noting that none of these are shown in the Colnect Cinderella section.

2010 Albrecht Durer Three Views of a Helmet Fragment Counterfeit Illegal Stamp Set of 4

This set appears to be "experimental" as it is the only set I found in this form. Slightly more difficult to make and as is usual with these criminals, being that the rest of the counterfeit sets are in an "easier" form, it was not used again in favor of the more basic form.



2010 Albrecht Durer Knight on Horseback Counterfeit Illegal Stamp Souvenir Sheet of 1



2010 Birds Counterfeit Illegal Stamp Set of 4



2010 Birds Counterfeit Illegal Stamp Souvenir Sheet of 1



2010 Butterflies Counterfeit Illegal Stamp Set of 20



2010 Butterflies Counterfeit Illegal Stamp Souvenir Sheet of 1



2010 First Japanese Goldfish Counterfeit Illegal Stamp Set of 8



2010 First Japanese Goldfish Counterfeit Illegal Stamp Souvenir Sheet of 1



2010 Fish Cichlids Counterfeit Illegal Stamp Set of 4



2010 Fish Cichlids Counterfeit Illegal Stamp Souvenir Sheet of 1



2010 Lichenes Counterfeit Illegal Stamp Set of 16



2010 Lichenes Counterfeit Illegal Stamp Souvenir Sheet of 1



2010 Mushrooms Counterfeit Illegal Stamp Set of 20



2010 Mushrooms Counterfeit Illegal Stamp Souvenir Sheets of 1



2010 Orchids Counterfeit Illegal Stamp Set of 8



2010 Orchids Counterfeit Illegal Stamp Souvenir Sheet of 1



2010 Stag Beetles Counterfeit Illegal Stamp Set of 4



2010 Stag Beetles Counterfeit Illegal Stamp Souvenir Sheet of 1



2010 Strange World Counterfeit Illegal Stamp Set of 4

Is there a counterfeit souvenir sheet that goes with this set?



2010 Trains Counterfeit Illegal Stamp Set of 8



2010 Trains Counterfeit Illegal Stamp Souvenir Sheet of 1

2011

In 2011 because apparently there was no serious backlash from the collecting community and/or the postal authorities of Tanzania the British producer continued production of the same style of counterfeits as were made in 2010. It was at some point in 2011 that he suddenly stopped. Circular 219 was not published until November of 2011 but, in theory, the producer was probably warned about it sometime in the middle of 2011. Still before it happened, the following counterfeit sets were produced and were placed onto the market.

2011 Children's Cartoons Counterfeit Illegal Stamp Set of 8

This counterfeit set is described and imaged in Circular 219.

This set is interesting in that the image I obtained from the user ekaterina who was on Delcampe and located in Russia was running in 2011 at the time circular 219 was made. Look closely and you will see it is the exact same image used in the circular! This user was finally kicked off of Delcampe in 2014. Sadly, the user ripped off many collectors with counterfeit goods before it happened.

Is there a souvenir sheet that goes with this set?



2011 Hockey Counterfeit Illegal Stamp Set of 4



2011 Hockey Counterfeit Illegal Stamp Souvenir Sheet of 1



2011 Olympic Games in London in 2012 Counterfeit Illegal Stamp Set of 4

This counterfeit set and the souvenir sheet are described and imaged in Circular 219.

We can see again that the images I picked up from user ekaterina are exactly the same images used in circular 219.

The counterfeit stamps are on the topics of Baseball, Basketball and Athletics.



2011 Olympic Games in London in 2012 Counterfeit Illegal Stamp Souvenir Sheet of 1

The counterfeit souvenir sheet is on the topic of Golf.



Apparently the postal authorities for Tanzania did not know to what level of extent the counterfeit producer takes some of his counterfeit productions up to. Here is an image of some souvenir sheets (sheetlets of 8) produced of the single counterfeit stamps. There are probably fake color proofs and other forms of varieties out there. These along with all the other counterfeits on this page were being sold by the user dolgopa (also located in Russia) on Delcampe. The rotten dealer also kicked off Delcampe in mid 2013. The user dolgopa and the user ekaterina are one and the same. Only the two user names were involved in the sale of these counterfeits on Delcampe. They both were using the same exact images. This is just another way these criminal dealers operate. Some have numerous accounts set up on the auction venues. One account gets "busted", they continue to run on other accounts. This is why venues like eBay need to upgrade their internal tracking of these ghouls for address, phone numbers, bank accounts and other means to recognize when they create a new account and stop them cold before they can create the account!

2011 Olympic Games in London in 2012 Counterfeit Illegal Stamp Singles in Sheetlets of 8

At the beginning of this page I was explaining why these counterfeits dating 2010 and 2011 were not made by the British counterfeit producer is because these sheetlets of 8 show the completely different style of what is thought to be a producer supposedly located in Spain. A couple good pages to view a comparison is the Djibouti 2010 and 2011 pages in the Djibouti Illegal Stamps reference section of the study. They have many counterfeit sets made by the same producer. Oddly the production of this style of illegal stamps for Djibouti ended in 2011 also!



2011 Space Counterfeit Illegal Stamp Set of 8



2011 Space Counterfeit Illegal Stamp Souvenir Sheet of 1



2011 Space Yuri Gagarin and Valentina Tereshkova Counterfeit Illegal Stamp Set of 2



2011 Water Birds Counterfeit Illegal Stamp Set of 4



Again, as suddenly as they appeared, they disappeared. I could find no other counterfeits from 2012 forward to 2015.
Then Topnimarka appears......

View Next Page here!

References taken from:
UPU Circular Number 219
Major Stamp Catalogs
Internet Research

All Content Copyright © 2022 Golowe's Collector Stamps, All Rights Reserved

Return to Tanzania Illegal Stamps Introduction

Visit Illegal Stamps Introduction