ILLEGAL STAMPS

Information and Reference of illegal stamps according to U.P.U. Circulars

What Illegal Stamps are

According to the UPU, "an illegal stamp is one that carries the name of a legitimate country or territory, but was not produced or printed by the postal administration of that country, and is not valid for postage anywhere in the world."

To me a very straight forward answer. There are many others that wish to include speculative and overproduced stamp issues. If they were authorized by the country in question they are not illegals.

A little history

The majority of illegal stamps on the market today are modern topical issues. The major production of them started in the early 1990's. They fall in line with British local issues that were being massively produced at the time. These were locals that were and are made for islands that do not have any legitimate usage for them under the guidelines of what genuine locals (like Lundy Island) are. Yet they are still produced because mainly unknowing collectors (usually topical) buy them. There is a very thin line between them and illegal stamps. Small territories and countries with no postal services have been targeted in the same way and by the same people I might add.

It soon became felt by these now professional fake stamp makers that they could simply start producing stamps using country names of countries with valid postal services and that is just what has and is happening to this day. These producers hide in the shadows of the philatelic world and use networks to move these illegal stamps. Some in the networks include prominent high volume stamp dealers and they are located all over the world.

They have now flooded the market with this junk to where thousands of lots on eBay, Delcampe, ebid, Amazon and so forth are these illegal stamp issues. Even though the U.P.U. has posted many circulars denouncing them. These circulars describe many of the issues but policy has been until now, not to post images of the illegals. In my view this policy has failed and the evidence is the massive marketing of them on the internet. The repetitive nature of illegal stamps is really quite boring. With the shoddy quality and nature of them I personally cannot understand why topical collectors buy them so readily.
Certain stamp agencies which have already been proven to be the producers or directly connect with them to this day are overproducing huge sets of stamps for some countries which never even use them. Sadly those countries have managed to be conned into contracts with them and now suffer with their postal reputations being tarnished to the point that most savvy collectors and dealers will not even touch their new issues with a ten foot pole!
Those countries should rethink those contracts because the agencies simply made them to legitimize what would be considered illegal stamps. The style of them is exactly the same as the illegal stamps from the past and present. Same topics, same style and same excessive production. It is obvious and in your face as to who were and are the producers of illegal stamps and yet all these years they have never been fully exposed. All agencies, the UPU and the stamp societies have failed in this so we now have millions of illegal stamps and over produced stamps circulating in the market. These agencies and dealers have become quite powerful now from the ripped off money they have obtained making them more elusive than ever. I do not understand why nobody has used the technology that we have today to root out and expose who has and is doing this. The paper, the gum, the inks used, the printers used can all be found through scientific investigation just like it is used to solve a murder case or robbery. Some of the illegal stamps have the color guides and markings left right on the selvage which is a unique guide as to who the printer is. yet nobody has investigated them and traced them to the source. The legitimate stamp agencies, UPU and stamp societies should have and still could, pool funds together to fund a worldwide investigation using high tech to find the people responsible for this and destroy their ability to do this by imprisonment, major fines, and public exposure as many illegal stamps have infringed on copyrights and all are crimes against the postal administrations they have victimized.

The rouge stamp agencies and stamps they make that I mention about above are called Abusive Stamps. It is a completely different problem than counterfeit illegal stamps although they run in the same paths. The owners of these rouge companies know who the illegal stamp producers are and have relations with them and their distributors. One big happy family is what you could call it.
To learn more about abusive stamps and what to avoid buying, here is a link to the PWMO page that lists the countries that are effected by these abusive agencies and what sections of years to avoid buying altogether. Sadly for some countries the range is for many years now.

Collector Stamps to Resist and to Avoid

The purpose of this reference section on illegal stamps is not only to provide a reference of what not to buy and to raise the awareness of what they are. The purpose is also to present a guide for all stamp venues, be it online sites like eBay or Delcampe, to auction houses and dealers who sell stamps to reject and disallow the sales of them. It is a reliable source to use to stop sales by the criminal dealers and in some cases, to remove the really bad dealers permanently from their venues forcefully. Be it removing the user from the online auction site where they are profiting the most and harming the most to rejecting buying any stamps from them at all and/or to rejecting accepting consignments from them.

What can I do to help stop the abuse?

To really damage the sale of counterfeit illegal stamps, the public needs a more direct approach, namely seeing images of them. Very few people who collect topical stamps are going to go to the U.P.U. and look up a circular to see if the stamp they are interested in is illegal or not!
Now if that stamp is imaged and the image optimized in search engines to target people interested in the topic it represents or the country it represents, then many more will become aware of what it is and avoid purchasing it.
You see, images are everything in the sale of illegal stamps. They are what attract buyers. So what if the same stamp is imaged and shows up right along with the ones being offered, only showing them it is an illegal stamp issue? Would turn away a lot of collectors that would have fallen victim. Far more than would become interested and buy it. Knowing that they will never retain value, simply because more and more people will recognize that they are counterfeit illegal stamps and worthless because the images are available for all to see worldwide. This should and will sway many away from being victimized by these criminal minded dealers.

With today's technological advances in image recognition it can be a simple task of creating a program that can use images of illegal stamps and scan sites like eBay and Delcampe for items being sold that contain them. In my research on them it is obvious who is selling them in large numbers. These sellers should be targeted and their sales deleted and future attempted sales stopped automatically. The same program could be used to recognize the images before the seller can even create the lot and stop any seller whether they know or not that the stamps are illegals. Using the same technology already in place that stops sellers from offering embargoed country stamps. The stamp collecting community should unite and demand that large public auction sites like eBay, which are now the main movers of these illegal stamps, enact this type of system into their site immediately. Within days some of these sellers offerings which number in the thousands would be diminished to a few if any lots at all! The program would also identify these sellers and give grounds for closing their accounts entirely under due discretion of the sites management of course. Personally I would kick them out in a heartbeat! These sellers have been selling them for years and it is obvious they know what they are selling.

I therefore have started yet another project. I am creating webpages as time permits which will document the counterfeit illegal stamps described in the UPU Circulars along with all verified illegal stamps produced before and after any circulars to present times in images! Each country section will have access to the PDF files (if they exist) of the UPU circular(s) and the images will be presented on pages by year of creation. These images can hit the internet within days and within a few months they will be accessed through all major search engines. One image can connect perspective buyers to a source they can check easily and thus raise their awareness.

The circulars to be documented are from legitimate countries with valid postal services who have had their country name used on these illegal stamps. Some circulars denounce stamps issued by segments of their country that are in political turmoil or that have been taken under control by a rival country. Today some of these are found to actually be legitimate in nature. My goal here is to show the obvious illegal stamps and to show the similarities (produced by the same makers) of them. As the list builds you will know who the major sellers of them are simply because they offer hundreds if not thousands of them. Some of these sellers are dealers to avoid in all regards. A group of them have been found to be the cause of this problem since the beginning and need to be ripped out of the stamp market....permanently.

Below I have created a table linking to the country sections that have been researched. Some countries have issued UPU circulars and some have never issued a circular. We are working toward changing that. It is hoped that the country sections will help to curb the buying and selling of illegal stamps as a whole. My advise is to avoid sellers, even if they are "reputable" or "professional" or "expert" dealers because if they are selling these illegal stamps...they are not any of those! They are supporting the illegal stamp trade and the criminals that produce them.

All documented illegal stamps are verifiable illegal stamps and unauthorized printings. In other words...if it is imaged on this website with the "ILLEGAL STAMPS" watermark....it is a verified illegal stamp and cannot be contested by anyone!

I would also like to state that certain people who wish to accuse me of working for Stamperija or IGPC or other things are dead wrong. For those that wish to accuse me of anything other than my firm commitment to eradicate these fake stamps which have plagued and are plaguing the stamp world for three decades now, all I can say is you definitely have not read nor understood what this reference section is about. If you did....you would not be accusing me of anything other than showing the world what is fake....and what is real with regards to collector stamps.

UPDATE July 2020

The battle rages on. More and more people are becoming aware of this problem and are beginning to fight. A "breakthrough" is imminent. The distributors are beginning to "feel the heat".

My gift to the collecting world this year so far. The Chad (Tchad) reference section is now fully online. Egypt has been added due to a new circular. Gabon has been added. Somaliland has been added. Somalia has been added. Niger is now added as well. Haiti is done! A new one nobody even knows....Nigeria is on! Uganda added!

I wish to note on the Colnect online stamp catalog. Recently they have added a ton of the illegal stamps to their "Cinderella" category. They appear to have good intentions as to raising the awareness, but by placing them in the "Cinderella" category they are only assisting the counterfeit illegal stamp dealers in creating confusion of what they are. Illegal stamps are not Cinderella stamps by any means and by placing them in that category they are not helping collectors of actual Cinderella stamps at all. If they really want to help collectors and the general public in becoming aware it is a simple task to create a separate main category for illegal stamps. Not doing so shows intent by someone within that group to continue the confusion of what illegal stamps are and to defer the reality away from what they are.
Counterfeit stamps....period.

UPDATE December 2020

Many more illegal stamp sets have been produced and are being sold in 2020. I have updated several key countries to show this. Am now adding the Central African Republic (Centrafricaine Republique) section. The main counterfeit illegal stamp dealers are still hard at it. Noting the main infesting is being done on Hipstamps. Certain dealers are starting to boldly post on eBay as well. This is in a way good because they are mounting even more evidence to be used against them in the end. It is becoming quite obvious who these people are as the research progresses. A plague that must be stomped out of the market permanently.

The wheels are churning, sadly, very slowly as in this year the Covid-19 pandemic has virtually stopped all progress. Even the UPU Congress has been postponed. It has not stopped the criminals from continuing to produce counterfeits. For 2020 you must beware of stamp issues on the topic of the Covid-19 pandemic and effected people, Kobe Bryant and the U.S. presidential elections. These criminals feast off current topics like these. Be aware and research new issues before you buy them! These criminals want you to not do the research so they can continue to profit by ripping you off!

UPDATE August 2021

It is now June of 2021 and the problem is no better. The UPU will be having the congress soon finally. The covid-19 has really caused chaos in all regards! I continue to add to this section more and more victimized countries. Have added Burkina Faso, Eritrea, Namibia, and now Saint Thomas and Prince Islands (Sao Tome e Principe), Mauritania, Morocco Sahara Republic, Ukrainian Antarctic Post, Uzbekistan and the Republic of Guinea. Countries like Chad(Tchad) and Madagascar have been updated to show these criminals are not stopping at all! Many more usernames added to the illegal stamp sellers list. Advise is to avoid them like the covid-19 virus!

This next year there will be some change. A large group of countries are uniting on a front against this problem. They have had enough. New leaders have been elected in the UPU congress. Change must be made to permanently eradicate the problem and the people behind it. We await the results of change from the lame leadership. Then we will attack with force. We allow the criminals to remain only to add to the mountain of evidence that is now available to use against them. They are really actually fools to remain selling illegal stamps. These criminal dealers got a small taste in the last couple years of what can happen on the venues like eBay and Delcampe. From having thousands of listings removed to being fully kicked off. Yes, it was just a small taste. This next year will be complete warfare against them. With the tech now available, detection has been dramatically increased. Image recognition, Key word searches and alerts from all fronts of who these people are, what stamp societies they are in, their positions, their businesses and their websites are all being revealed. Right down to the houses and cars they own, purchased with money funded from the sales of counterfeit goods. The next year is going to be a very bad year for these criminals. There are now many people in the stamp community that are going to insure that!

UPDATE November 2021

The criminals continue to produce illegal stamps even though Covid-19 is still ravaging the world. They have even resorted to making illegal stamps on the topic of Covid-19 and the vaccines that are being created. The abusive agency Stamperija has even joined in on it. All in the name of large profits from yet another tragedy. Everyone should boycott any sales on the topic made in this year as it is only to profit from a tragedy of which these people do not care about at all! These people are crude and relentless in intent to rip you off! The UPU congress is over and one thing good has happened. New leadership is moving in. Change is imminent on the front against these criminals. I am presently working on getting pages out for the Comoro Islands. Yet another country hit hard by these ghouls. Also yet another piece of the puzzle as to who they are and what they have done in regards to corrupting the catalogs and fooling millions of collectors into buying their counterfeit goods. The same people involved in making the issues starting in 1998 are still directly selling them to this day. They need to be taken out once and for all to end this problem. It can be done.

UPDATE April 2022

The problem continues. The pandemic has wrecked havoc even on the counterfeit producers delaying new productions, but they persist. Now the war in Ukraine is inhibiting major illegal stamp distributors located in Russia. A good example is the user mapka666 who is located in Russia on eBay (mapka on Delcampe and the corrupt Hipstamp). Completely shut down on eBay and Delcampe. Still running sales on Hipstamp though. The corrupt site still as of this time allowing the criminal to run sales even though if you were to try to buy any of them, you would find inability to purchase them and definitely an inability to receive the goods should your money go through! The clown states on his about page on eBay "The seller is away until Tue, Dec 31, 2030. Expect a delay in delivery until they return.". He tried to deceive eBay changing his "location" to Kazakhstan. Did not work and that is good! Hopefully the sanctions will continue through 2030 and this rat will not return.

I must note a new "change" on Delcampe in regards to past sales on the site. The criminal illegal stamp peddlers are now having their user data changed to a form of DATA_PRIVACY where their user name is now not shown in the description and the frames which showed their user name on them have been removed as well. This is something that Delcampe management should rethink. The public transparency of who these people are is being suppressed obviously by request of criminal dealers who want their criminal activity of the past hidden from public view. What these freaks do not understand is the data is still retained and can be accessed by proper investigators. I do not know why Delcampe management does not see this and stop complying with these criminals and aiding and abetting them in hiding who they are. The criminals do not have any "privacy" rights to hide their past activity of public sales. Feedback, ok, past sales, not ok. It makes Delcampe look bad to say the least. I have luckily retained hundreds of images that have these clowns user name on the frames and also many snapshots of their prior sales filed so if they think they have made it impossible to see, they are most definitely....wrong. So, for the criminals information, should they try to contest my revealing of who they are, sorry, I have the proof retained.

The Comoro Islands section is complete. Mozambique has been added connecting the "dots" even further on the criminal British producers activities including the 2006 EUROPA 50th Anniversary scam. Kosovo has been added and now the newest edition being Burundi which includes the Bujumbura illegal stamps. Also I have added a new reference for Iraq and Kurdistan. As you can see this site is now the number one site to reference illegal stamps! Awareness is increasing daily as to who is distributing this garbage and what it is. In this year, I plan to develop an unstoppable weapon against these people that will devastate their sales and increase the awareness a thousand times more.
Tech is coming for these rat dealers! Something the UPU and the countries should have developed long ago but instead they put their heads in the sand and did nothing.

ALERT! ALERT!

A really bad counterfeit illegal stamp producing company based in Russia has become a serious problem for the whole stamp market. The company name is TOPNIMARKA.COM.
Location is Russia, Moscow, Schelkovskoe Rd., 3, p. 1 shopping center City Hobbies 2nd floor, Hall 230. Owner is Mr. Kirill Matveytsev. Age in 2020 is 39.

This stamp dealer is producing the biggest quantity of counterfeit illegal stamps in the name of so many countries it is really unbelievable!

This dealer has no regard to anyone and is completely wrapped up in his own world producing communist propaganda stamps in which his heroes are Stalin and Lenin. Completely stuck on the Moscow 1980 Olympics and things like the Apollo-Soyuz missions. Everything this company offers outside of some Russian stamps is FAKE! We have solid evidence this company will produce requested stamp topics at will and lie stating they found it. They claim the stamps are "manufactured" by the countries inscribed on the stamps which is complete deception and lies. This company is dirty to the core...

The company presents "images" of the stamps made from the original files of the images that will be placed on the counterfeits when ordered. In other words, all the images are not images of the actual "stamps" but images of what will be on them when ordered. This is kind of a new way of producing the counterfeits. Unlike this counterfeit producers predecessors who created and printed thousands if not millions of copies and stocked them, this company prints them as they are ordered. This minimizes stock "on hand" and the producer probably thinks that if he gets "caught" he can destroy the evidence by deleting all the files and destroying what little stock he created to sell in his lousy store in Moscow. Sorry to say but the evidence is on the internet and in collectors hands already now, thus this company and its owners can be held accountable, even if they attempt their really obvious plan.

They have attempted to start up accounts on eBay and Delcampe. Management has removed them permanently and will remove them again and again should they try to get on again. At this point their garbage is not effecting the main market because they are basically "stuck" in Russia. This company should be dismantled and the owner(s) brought to justice. I would send the rats to the far points of Siberia! These cons are even producing counterfeit stamps and "back dating" them as if issued years earlier. They first started doing this around 2016 and started back dating their fake stamps all the way back to 2010!

I have posted many of their sets on the pages but they are producing counterfeits at an incredible speed so most assured I do not have all of them shown. Their "styles" are pretty much easy to define. Most are really crummy photoshop garbage that they repeatedly use the same images and just "move them around". Please be aware and do your research before buying any modern topical stamps. These clowns even have made stamps in the name of EGYPT! Egypt put out a UPU circular last year describing some. Apparently not knowing who is doing it nor the extent that they did it. Well, MY FINGER IS POINTING RIGHT AT THEM. Is the UPU and the member countries victimized by these criminals so lame they cannot see it and do anything about it? The whole stamp market should come down on these criminals and get rid of them. It is obvious who these people are. The same goes for the other producers and distributors of counterfeit illegal stamps. They are few and we are many.

Stand up and don't be a lame duck like so many dealers, association leaders and the UPU leaders have proven to be. Fight these people by avoiding them wherever they are selling stamps. Point them out to everyone you know. Complain to your stamp association leaders that they need to unite and get rid of these people! They are
DESTROYING YOUR HOBBY!!

Note: This page has a lot of images so please be patient with the download.
A List of Countries, Dependencies and Provinces Effected by Counterfeit Illegal Stamps

If you are on the linked list and want to get off of it, prove you are and will not sell any more counterfeit illegal stamp issues! You are free to contact me through this site at any time. Until you stop selling them you will remain on the lists which get archived over time on other sites...permanently. You are the one selling counterfeit stamps to the point you got on this list meaning you are a bad dealer not to be trusted on any account. Now thousands of collectors and dealers worldwide know who you are....

List of Online Sellers who Sell Counterfeit Illegal Stamps

Please join the fight against counterfeit illegal stamps. Without the support of the stamp community, we cannot win against these evil people. Anything you can do to fight them will help. Be it by raising awareness to reporting these bad dealers and the counterfeits they sell, every little bit helps. Thank you.

References taken from:
U.P.U. IB Circulars
WNS Stamp System
Major Online Catalogs
Major Stamp Catalogs
Major Stamp Selling Venues
Internet Research

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