THE MODERN FAKE 1982 21ST BIRTHDAY OF PRINCESS DIANA STAMP ISSUES

Fake Diana 21st Birthday Invert Color Proof Set

In December 2016 I first presented this page for collectors and dealers to learn and detect the forgeries of the Princess Diana 1982 21st Birthday stamp issues that were originally printed for Saint Vincent, Saint vincent Grenadines, Montserrat and Tuvalu. At that time I only had one example in my possession of the Saint Vincent fake invert.

In March of 2018 I was contact by Mr.George Saunders, a fellow philatelist located in Canada, who told me that he had acquired a large quantity of the fake inverts in auction and realized by the information on my original page what they were. He was kind enough to donate a number of the gutters, pairs and other examples for me to be able to present to you a much more comprehensive page on the subject of these forgeries. with his donation I can now present to you all the forgeries with detailed comparisons with genuine issues. Because of his donation I have now discovered that there have been several printings of these forgeries and there exists a new variety of one forgery as well!

Mr. Saunders has stated that the rest of what he acquired he has shredded. Indeed a rightful end to these bogus stamps that have now been used for years to rip off collectors and dealers worldwide. None of these inverts were ever produced by the Format International Security Printers. They are shoddy reproductions of the issue that can never obtain the quality and integrity of the genuine stamp issues. No longer are they to be tolerated as offers on eBay nor Delcampe as anything other than forgeries. Sellers will no longer be allowed to offer them as if genuine. They will only be allowed to be listed if the seller places them in the proper category and clearly describes them as forgeries. On top of that the seller must permanently mark them on the back with the word "forgery" and prove this with an image showing it.

So, because of the help from Mr. Saunders I present to you a new updated and intensely detailed page on how to detect not only the fake inverts but forgeries as imperforates and color proofs and other "errors" of this issue.

I have discovered that modern fake imperforates and inverted frame errors of the 21st Birthday stamp issues produced for Tuvalu, Saint Vincent, Grenadines of Saint Vincent and Montserrat have been placed onto the market in recent years and are on the market to this day. Also fake color proof sets like the one imaged exist as well. They are nothing like the genuine stamps as the following will show you and teach you how to detect the forgeries from genuine stamps.

I can tell you that real dangerous forgeries are being sold on the market as I write this updated page in April of 2018.
The first question is how can you spot them and the simple answer is....
The inverted frame errors are all forgeries because the Format International Security Printers never produced inverts for these issues perforated or not!

The catalog numbers for the imperforate, perforated forgeries and forged inverts are.

Montserrat Scott 486 from the set of 484-6, SG 544 from the set of 542-4
Saint Vincent Scott 649 from the set of 647-9, SG 696 from the set of 694-6
Saint Vincent Grenadines Scott 245 from the set of 243-5 SG 231 from the set of 229-31
Tuvalu Scott 172 from the set of 170-2, SG 186 from the set of 184-6

DO NOT BUY IMPERFORATE 21ST BIRTHDAY STAMPS WITHOUT VERIFYING THEY ARE REAL!

There are legitimate imperforates of these issues out there but because these forgeries of inverts both perforated and imperforate are on the market, it is evidence that both perforated and imperforate normal stamps have probably also been forged. The forgers have done this with other forgeries I have discovered. Michael Jackson, Elvis Presley, Trains, Cars, Birds, the list is long!

DO NOT BUY ANY INVERT FRAME ERRORS OF THE PRINCESS DIANA 21ST BIRTHDAY STAMPS EXCEPT AS A FORGERY!

The first and basically the only reason the inverts of the 21st Birthday issues as imaged are fakes is because until now they did not EXIST!!! They never were on the market until these last few years. All of a sudden 30 years later these appear! So you don't smell a rat?

Come up with a genuine invert of this issue, which there are none, and this page can be changed. I challenge any of you to disprove this. The fakes can never match a genuine stamp printed by the Format Printers so why not give up?

Sellers who were offering these forgeries on eBay and Delcampe have been stopped. Only by following the rules noted above are they allowed to offer them. As new listings come up by other sellers who try to sell them as if genuine, those listings will be closed swiftly and with a vengeance. Any new sellers who persist in trying to off this junk without describing them for what they are and following the rules on them are only asking for trouble.
First I want to show you just how "common" these forgeries are. Here is a snapshot of a lot sold in an H.R. Harmer auction.


It clearly states over 9,000 of these fake inverts were in it. It is absolute proof of how common they are. The buyer paid $1,900.00 for it! Not only was the buyer ripped off but now that buyer is one of many who has been trying to rip you off as well!
The consignor who is the source or is associated closely with the source of the many forgeries I have listed still remains anonymous because these auction houses refuse to expose him. This is why auction houses like this should be forced to reveal the consignors when it is proven that they have sold forgeries through their business.
At this point.....none can be trusted as this lot shows.

ALERT!

As I predicted in 2016 the fake misperf stamps stated to being in the image lot have surfaced. Here is an image of a full double pane of them! Inverted as well.

This one Harmer lot is only one example of how many of these fakes exist. There are tons more that were produced. This is how these shady dealers operate. They will act as if they only have a couple when in reality they have a thousand or more at their disposal. One of these sellers likes to state on his website, and I quote, "We believe that several hundred might exist of this rare stamp.". There is no "we" and it has been proven that thousands exist. Again use of complete deceit by a supposed "reputable" dealer who has fooled thousands already for years!

The next thing to detect forgeries of this issue is the watermark. All four countries had this issue produced through the British Crown Agents Stamp Agency. This means they were printed on the Crown Agents watermarked paper which was kept in a special storage room at the Format Printing Company.
this is noted as watermark 15 in Stanley Gibbons and watermark 380 in Scott Catalog. This is the "POST OFFICE" watermark. Inverts of the watermark are genuine. If...no watermark....not real!

Next we can tell genuine perforated issues from many of the forgeries simply by counting the perforation holes. There are 34 holes on the vertical sides on genuine stamps. There are 31 holes on the vertical sides of forgeries.

I used a Saint Vincent Grenadines 1982 Princess Diana 21st Birthday Genuine stamp with an invert forgery for the comparison. You can see how rough and shoddy the perforations are on the forgery. Very similar to the Saint Vincent 1985 Michael Jackson and Elvis Presley unauthorized reprints which have these same faulty perforation cuts. I contend that the inverts were made by Clive Feigenbaum at the same time era. Evidence showing you why will be presented as we go through the comparisons below.

Here are comparison images with notes. You can use these images to compare perforated and imperforate stamps as well.

In 2017 I found the one forgery I had purchased years before. The Saint Vincent imperforate forgery. What I have now discovered with the donated forgeries that Mr. Saunders sent to me is that there are at least two different printings of the invert forgeries! So we will start with the Saint vincent invert forgery first. I am leaving this update section I made in 2017. Let's begin!

UPDATING AS OF SEPTEMBER 2017

Today I found that I actually bought one of the Saint Vincent imperforate Princess Diana 21st Birthday Inverts a long time ago!

This means I have everything needed to show you why these inverts and imperforates and possibly even some normal looking perforated stamps are forgeries!
First, here is a perfect scan comparison resized of them together.

Already you can see there is a huge quality difference in the image of Diana. That's because the forger uses shoddy cheap printing practices because he makes lousy forgeries. Most of the sellers listed know these are fake because several are directly connected to the forger! It is soooo obvious.

Now to blow this garbage to hell....and to bring these sellers down to their knees.

As with all the forgeries I have posted pages, these are no different.
Here are gum comparisons. This holds true for all the countries involved.

Gum Comparison of a Fake 21st Birthday Stamp Pair with Original
Unlike the gum on most of the forgeries that are flooding the market right now the gum is more yellowish in color on these. It is opaque though in comparison with the original gum. This type of gum has appeared on several other issues I have detected as forgeries like the St. Vincent Century of Motoring issue and several Locomotives sets. It is having a tendency to curl worse than original gum. I do not know if these were produced earlier by the forger and held until now, but they did not appear here on the market until recently. Everything else about the forgeries is the same as all the other forgeries I have described as you will see. This yellowish gum does make them harder to detect though at first glance without originals to compare with.



Screen and Color Comparison of the Fake Stamp with Original Stamp
This is a cropping of the image of Princess Diana's face taken at 1200dpi resolution.
Note the extreme difference in color on the fake stamp. The inferior screen pattern that lacks much of the details.


Do you want this garbage in your collection???

This is a cropping of the image of Princess Diana's right shoulder showing the stripes on her blouse taken at 1200dpi resolution.
Again, note the extreme difference in color on the fake stamp. The inferior screen pattern that lacks much of the details.


Still want to buy this garbage for say $40.00-$50.00 for just one fake stamp??? That is the going rate some sellers on eBay want.
All the inverts and other junk this forger has made for all the countries involved are the same quality which is going to be....worthless.

How many of you have already been ripped off by these stamp dealers?

Now let's look at the fonts.


You can see that the fonts on the genuine stamp are clear and crisp. On this forgery they are all blurred together.

Some of these sellers have no morals and will gladly take your money knowing full well that they will never buy this junk back from you as will almost every dealer out there.
So again I stress do not buy these fake inverts except as forgeries!

END OF THE SEPTEMBER 2017 UPDATE

So there is the original "bombshell" I launched in 2017. Now I will go deeper!

When I first got the fake inverts from Mr. Saunders I looked at the gum and was surprised to see that all the inverts from St. Vincent, St. Vincent Grenadines and Montserrat have a greenish tint gum! the Tuvalu fake inverts have a yellowish gum exactly the same as the one St. Vincent invert forgery I described above! This immediately shows us that there are two printings of the forgeries. Here is an image of the gum comparisons for the St. Vincent forgery.


The greenish color gum is exactly the same as the gum that was used on the unauthorized reprint souvenir sheets of the St. Vincent 1985 Michael Jackson issues. Because of that fact, this shows us that the invert Diana forgeries were produced in the same time era by the same producer, Clive Feigenbaum.
Because of the large quantities being offered in recent years evidence is showing that they were mainly stored for years and just released onto the market recently.

Now here is an image of the two different forgeries, side by side.


So we can now see a huge difference between the two printings of the forgeries. The gum used on what I now detect as the first printing has characteristics unlike any other unauthorized reprint Mr. Feigenbaum created that I have seen. You can see that the fonts are extremely shoddy on the yellowish gummed version. The face of Diana is very dark and so forth. You can also see a size difference between the two printings. both forgeries were scanned on the same day using the same scanner and settings so there can be no conflict about this.

Improvements were made as you can see on the 2nd printing including lightening the background colors, clarifying the fonts and resizing the forgery to closer resemble the genuine stamp. Here is a comparison.

Still not perfect by any means. Now the 2nd printing forgery has a lighter background than the genuine stamp yet Diana's face is still darker. But....at least the fonts look better!

Now here is one more image showing a close up view of Diana's face on both versions of the forgeries.

Yet again, Clive could never create a forgery to match the genuine stamps standards set by the Format Printers. The plates used to make the genuine stamps long since destroyed. No way to match the extremely fine detail on the genuine stamps.
So there you have it!

Now one more for the Saint Vincent issue. The vignette on the gutter. Using the genuine gutter pair I purchased with one of the invert forgery gutter pairs from the same position, here is an image of the vignette. This is from the 2nd forgery printing.


So now here is the new updated section on the rest of the invert forgeries from Saint Vincent Grenadines, Montserrat and Tuvalu. Be sure to check out the Montserrat "wrong Dress" invert error. An "error" on an "error"?

Comparison of the Fake Saint Vincent 21st Birthday of Princess Diana Inverted Frame Error with an Original Stamp


Obvious difference:
THE PERFORATIONS!

Count them. There are 31 perforation holes on the sides of the forgeries. There are 34 holes on genuine stamps.
There are 20 perforation holes on the bottom and top of the forgeries. There are 21 holes on genuine stamps.
At this point the forgers have not tried to duplicate the perforation sizes for these and therefore it is easy to define perforated forgeries.

But what about imperforate forgeries?

This will be the same for all forgeries of this series.

Look at Princess Diana's vest and hat. Do you see the color difference? On the genuine $6 stamp they are almost red in color. On the forgeries they are orange!
The background color is pale yellow where on the forgeries it is deep yellow.
Note the fonts. The "Diana" black lettering and the "H.R.H." lettering are much bolder on genuine stamps.

Ok, here is another image using a cropping of the invert shown in the group picture at the top of this page and a different sellers image of a genuine stamp.


Again the perforation count is the same as noted above.
Now you can see how the image of the forgery has been darkened and enhanced by the seller. Doesn't help. The difference between genuine stamps and the forgeries is obvious.

Now here is a comparison of imperforates.


Again the same differences.

Saint Vincent Grenadines 1982 21st Birthday of Princess Diana Inverted Frame Forgery

Comparison of the Saint Vincent Grenadines 21st Birthday of Princess Diana Inverted Frame Error Forgery with a Genuine Stamp
I picked up the image of the specimen stamp and the invert forgery from sellers lots on eBay. Because there appears to be several differences between the imaged forgery and the forgeries I received from Mr. Saunders this is probably one of the 1st printing forgeries.


Obvious difference:
The background color is red-pink on genuine stamps, very light lavender on forgeries. Look at the stripes on Princess Diana's dress. Purple on genuine stamps, dark lavender on forgeries.

Now here are some new images I am adding as of 2018.

This image is a comparison of the 2nd printing (green gummed) forgery with a genuine stamp I had stored for years.

Here we can see a difference in the 2nd printing in that the stripes on Diana's dress appear very close in color to the genuine stamp. Also the frame appears to be dulled down. Still you can see with this comparison that the frame on genuine stamps is red-plum whereas it is purple on the forgeries. also Diana's face is darker on both versions of the forgeries. To be sure though here is a closeup comparison. Yes, the same coarse screening on the forgery.

Montserrat 1982 21st Birthday of Princess Diana Inverted Frame Forgery

Comparison of the Fake Montserrat 21st Birthday of Princess Diana Inverted Frame Error with an Original Stamp
I picked up the image of the specimen stamp and the invert forgery from sellers lots on eBay for this issue as well. Because there appears to be several differences between the imaged forgery and the forgeries I received from Mr. Saunders, again this is probably one of the 1st printing forgeries.


Obvious difference:
The background color is pale yellow green on genuine stamps, deep yellow green on forgeries. The dark background is dark army green on genuine stamps versus brown-green on forgeries. The background color of Princess Diana's dress is blue on genuine stamps versus green on the forgeries. Most striking is her hair. you can see it is completely different in color.

Now here are some new images I am adding as of 2018.

This image is a comparison of the 2nd printing (green gummed) forgery with a genuine stamp I recently purchased from a reputable dealer in a set.


Here we can see a difference in the 2nd printing in that the frame color on the forgery is dulled down and much closer to the color of the genuine stamp. The yellow of the background has been greatly lightened. Still Diana's dress is has greener tints and her hair is yellowed. Again Diana's face is darker on the forgery. Here again is another closeup image for comparison and yes again the forgery has coarse screening.
Now here is the "Wrong Dress" Inverted Frame forgery. The Tuvalu picture and plaque were placed in the frame for Montserrat certainly not by any legitimate error. A fake error on a fake error. Go figure!

Tuvalu 1982 21st Birthday of Princess Diana Inverted Frame Forgery

Comparison of the Fake Tuvalu 21st Birthday of Princess Diana Inverted Frame Error with an Original Stamp


Obvious difference:
Image of Diana has completely different colors.

Here is another Tuvalu invert being sold by a notorious dealer of illegal stamps and such.


Now here are some new images I am adding as of 2018.

This image is a comparison of the 1st printing (yellow gummed) forgery with a genuine stamp I recently purchased from a reputable dealer in a strip set containing all the gutter vignette's.


Here we can see a difference in the 1st printing in that the frame color on the forgery is dulled down and much closer to the color of the genuine stamp. I have questions on this one though.
The two forgeries above have much more intense differences than this one. Deeper red frames, deeper pink backgrounds and that brown dress versus the genuine gray dress! Are they the 2nd printing? Or is this a 2nd printing because the colors are not intense and the dress on the forgery is much closer in color to the genuine stamp. Yet this forgery has the same characteristics with the fonts as the St. Vincent 1st printing shown above. The country name blurred together and such. Perhaps multiple "1st" printings? The prices these dealers were asking for just the one forgery makes it to where I am not buying them to find out! Maybe you have the answer....
Here again is another closeup image for comparison and yes again the forgery has coarse screening.
Even though this forgery is closer to the colors of the genuine stamp you can see they are extremely different.


Need I say more?

You can now define the 1982 21st Birthday of Princess Diana Inverted Frame Error Stamp Forgeries easily and can now possibly avoid being ripped off! Sorry to say this, a lot of you already have been fooled and more of you will be until the right people get serious about it!

Your friend and fellow collector and researcher,
JLowe RETURN TO TOP

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