BELIZE 1986 ROYAL WEDDING
STAMP ERRORS AND VARIETIES
PRINTED BY THE FORMAT INTERNATIONAL SECURITY PRINTERS LTD.

Information and Reference on the 1986 Royal Wedding Stamp Sheetlets and Souvenir Sheets made for Belize

Information on this series is changing as more information is being discovered. This page and associated pages will be updated as more information is made available.

The following assessment on the creation, production and distribution of the 1986 Royal Wedding stamp issues for Belize and absolute proof that the inverted black inscriptions error stamp sheetlet was intentionally created and is NOT a rarity nor genuine error will be revealed on this page. Sorry to say but this will devalue the "error" to the status of many other made for collector errors produced by the Format Printers. At present these varieties are being offered and sold for anywhere between $120.00 to $350.00 for a strip of three. The value should be $10.00 to $15.00 for a strip of three. They are simply an interesting novelty.

The assessment is taken from the documents obtained from the trial exhibits presented by the prosecuting attorney in the trials against the printers and associated companies in 1989. Even though the stamps in question were proven to not be made illegally, they still are intentionally made for collector errors and some stamp dealers and their companies deceitfully sold them to unaware collectors as genuine errors comparing them with stamps such as the U.S. inverted Jenny and such.

The story begins.
Around April 16, 1986 a Mr. D. Issa owner of Numismatica International Corp. S. A. (NIC) located in Vaduz, Liechtenstein requested an estimate from the Format Printers for 10,000 sheetlets and 20,000 souvenir sheets for a newly designed stamp issue for Belize for the 1986 Royal Wedding of Prince Andrew and Miss Sarah Ferguson. Although the ties to Belize with Mr. Issa are not clear I presume this was originally discussed and approved by the Belize Philatelic Bureau. The estimate to produce them was for the cost of £3,474.



INVERTED BLACK INSCRIPTIONS ERROR SHEETLET


On June 10, 1986 an invoice for the production and completion of the 1986 Royal Wedding issues for Belize was made to Mr. Issa and this is the first piece of evidence proving the production of not only the made for collector inverted black inscriptions error but also the production of the imperforate varieties of the stamps and souvenir sheets.


INVERTED BLACK INSCRIPTIONS ERROR STRIP


Noting that 1,000 sets of the black inverts were ordered. Actually because of the numbers of strips in the sheetlets it is 1,002.
Also included is the order for 300 imperforate sheetlets (which I have seen none on the market) and 600 imperforate souvenir sheets all taken from the main quantities requested. I can assure you that with the availability on the market from numerous sellers that all of them have been retained other than the sheetlets and souvenir sheets in imperforate form. The whereabouts of most of them is still a mystery.
I note here that several other Belize issues of the time were included in the production but that is another story.

THE IMPERFORATE SOUVENIR SHEET

ALERT!

At least 5000 forgeries of the souvenir sheet of two as imperforates has been flooded onto the market. This has been done by the one who has access to and retains the plates and/or other printing materials used to make this set. It means everyone must be wary of the whole issue including the inverts as any part of this set could and can be forged by the criminal. He has done this with numerous issues produced by the Format Printers including creating numerous invert forgeries like the St. Vincent Michael Jackson issues and various 60th Birthday issues and so forth.
Please visit my page on how to detect them here.

1986 Belize Royal Wedding Fake Souvenir Sheets According to the documents and this is kind of funny. 10 sheetlets were sent to the postmaster general of Belize (a Mr. Godfrey) and the invoice date was July 22, 1986! One day before the major catalogs stated date of issue being July 23, 1986. Wow! A whole 10 sheetlets were available in Belize on the date of issue!
Not to frett though. Another 1,000 sheetlets and 1,000 souvenir sheets were delivered to the postmaster general of Belize on July 28, 1986.

Now the status gets real murky. Evidence shows there was a reprinting. The first company to get involved was, and this will probably not shock knowing collectors, Inter-governmental Philatelic Corporation (IGPC). Run by Mr. S. Malamud. And now if you noticed at the bottom of the imaged invoice that the stock including the inverted black inscriptions errors was delivered to his company. Interesting yes?

What is more interesting is the lies and deceit used to fool collectors. In comes Stanley Apfelbaum owner and operator of First Coinvestors, Inc.(FCI). Notorious for over grading coins and doing bad things with them.
A big advertisement announcing the discovery of the "error" by his stamp dealer "friend" in NY (Mr. Malamud I am sure) who just "happened" to come across the error while sorting through the sheetlets. And how many did he find? Why 984 sheetlets with the error! Yea right! Here is the advertisement in it's entire form.

FIRST COINVESTORS INC. ADVERTISEMENT FOR BELIZE 1986 ROYAL WEDDING INVERTED BLACK INSCRIPTIONS ERROR SHEETLET
PAGE 1

PAGE 2

PAGE 3

PAGE 4


$895.00 for one sheetlet! Nice! Oh but what happened to the rest of them?

URCH HARRIS ADVERTISEMENT FOR BELIZE 1986 ROYAL WEDDING INVERTED BLACK INSCRIPTIONS ERROR STRIPS


In March of 1987 a reprinting was done by the Format Printers. The shipments went to Urch Harris. What is not clear is what was reprinted. There are two separate invoices. My belief is that one is for the normal issues and one is for the "error" and possibly imperforate souvenir sheets.
Again as I stated earlier the imperforate souvenir sheet is not readily available. Only one dealer appears to have them in present times. According to this dealer, he obtained around sixty of the imperforate souvenir sheets from Clive Feigenbaum (owner of Urch Harris). The location of the rest of the quantity is unknown to this day.
Here are the two invoices.

BELIZE 1986 ROYAL WEDDING REPRINT INVOICES



As you can see the existence of these varieties has a dark and shady past. And they should be treated as such I am afraid. They should be priced between $5-7.00 and no more. It is time for sellers and buyers to get this "error" in the right status. The trial documents also show that certain dealer run stamp agencies are not to be "trusted" by anyone including the stamp catalogs. Catalog editors should not just take the word of the owner of the agency who will "say" the stamps are valid and follow the guidelines of what can be listed in the catalogs. These documents show absolute proof that these owners are not to be trusted in any regards to the validity of stamp issues produced through their "private" stamp agencies.

Now here is a true error of the souvenir sheet.

UPDATE 2021

I was contacted by Mr. Buzz Jehle who is a specialist in archival materials for Belize stamps. He was kind enough to send me images of a progressive color proof set of the sheetlet of nine which includes an image of one of the imperforate inverted inscriptions sheetlet! According to Buzz he obtained them through an auction a few years ago. I am writing this in December of 2021. He has not seen anything like it since and I have not seen any either.

According to the Christie's 1995 sale of the Format printers archive, in lot number 25 a number of them were sold. The part describing them is as follows:

Sheetlets of 9 (78) including nine progressives and three showing the black printing inverted

Now, if you look at it closely you will see that the numbers do not quite "add up". If you divide 9 into it by using either 75 or 78 it does not come out to a "round" figure so there is definitely an error in the description. The nearest number to come up with a total "round" number of the sets of 9 is 72. This would mean 8 sets of the progressives were in the sale and possibly 6 inverts as imperforates. I think the number should have been 75 instead of 78 which would make it all work as the described three inverts stands. I have seen typo errors like this in other cases within the catalog.

The bottom line is that both the progressive color proof sets and the imperforate version of the invert inscription "error" are extremely rare.

Here are images of these extremely rare sheetlets.

Belize 1986 Royal Wedding Imperforate Final Proof Sheetlet of 9

Belize 1986 Royal Wedding Imperforate All Colors with Gold Frames Proof Sheetlet of 9

Belize 1986 Royal Wedding Imperforate All Colors Proof Sheetlet of 9

Belize 1986 Royal Wedding Imperforate Blue and Red Proof Sheetlet of 9

Belize 1986 Royal Wedding Imperforate Blue Proof Sheetlet of 9

Belize 1986 Royal Wedding Imperforate Red Proof Sheetlet of 9

Belize 1986 Royal Wedding Imperforate Yellow and Black Proof Sheetlet of 9

Belize 1986 Royal Wedding Imperforate Gold Frames Proof Sheetlet of 9


Here is how the inverts were made. Simply running this black inscriptions plate through the press upside down on purpose.

Belize 1986 Royal Wedding Imperforate Black Inscriptions Proof Sheetlet of 9


Finally the now infamous 1986 Belize Royal Wedding Invert as an Imperforate Proof. Basically it is a real rarity a thousand times rarer than the perforated inverts.

Belize 1986 Royal Wedding Imperforate Inverted Black Inscriptions final Proof Sheetlet of 9


This basically sums up the evidence showing quantities and what was produced in regards to the Belize 1986 Royal Wedding Sheetlets and Souvenir Sheet.
It proves the inverted black inscriptions error is really only a made for collector error and not genuine or in the class of the inverted Jenny and other such genuine inverts at all!
It also shows the deceitful tactics used by IGPC, FCI and Urch Harris in selling of the so called errors. It also again shows stubbornness of dealers to not admit they were fooled into believing the perforated inverts were not a genuine error and therefore reducing their valuation of them. Might I add that some of the same dealers are still "running the show" to this day.

Buyers always beware!

As new information and evidence is found it will be added to this page.
If you have any examples of the missing imperforate sheetlets or have any varieties of any of the above as in specimens, errors, or progressive color proofs, please feel free to contact me and send me images!

Check out more research on the Format International Security Printers stamps and varieties Here!

All Content Copyright © 2013 Golowe's Collector Stamps, All Rights Reserved