THE MODERN FAKE SAINT VINCENT 1986 WORLD CUP SOCCER STAMP ISSUES

Saint Vincent 1986 World Cup Soccer Forgeries
Scott# 950,954,955,957 Stanley Gibbons# MS995b,c,d,f

I have recently discovered that modern fake stamps of this issue are being flooded onto the market. I can tell you that real dangerous fakes or some call forgeries are being flooded on the market as I write this page in October of 2015.
The souvenir sheets imaged above are all fakes!

My research into the printer has enabled me to discover modern fake stamps have been created in 2014!! They are being spread across the world through online auction sites like eBay and Delcampe. Everything about them is fake except for one dangerous fact, they have the correct perf size. The gum type is different in it being white in color and very shiny. This gum type was not used until much later years, long after Format went bankrupt thus proving they were not produced by the Format International Security Printers. Obvious differences will be shown below. So far I have discovered that four of the six souvenir sheets of the 1986 Saint Vincent World Cup Soccer (Football) Championship issue as imperforates have been forged. All are being offered online right now as I write this on October 25, 2015.

I have found documented proof dated April 2015 that at least 10,000 imperforate forgeries of each of the imaged souvenir sheets have been moved onto the market!
They were sold in Gaertner's 30th auction in lot number 21438A.

I can also tell you that I have discovered that many more "modern" issues for Saint Vincent and other countries are being forged. Mainly varieties and "errors" of the issues which bring in higher profits although normal issues are also being faked in now many cases. All are being produced by the same source which is unknown at present. All are dangerous forgeries because the perf sizes are correct. Images shown on auction sites cannot be trusted because they cannot be defined by counting perforations and unless you have a comparable image of the originals they cannot be recognized by the images given by sellers. This includes the Audubon Birds issues including inverted frames, Dogs inverts, Flowers inverts, Michael Jackson inverts, imperforates and many more.

ANY INFORMATION TO TRACE THE SOURCE OF THESE FORGERIES WILL BE POSTED TO THE PROPER RESOURCES

At present sellers on eBay, Delcampe, Bonanza, and Amazon are offering them. I am sure other sources are now selling them also. A list of these sellers is being compiled and at some point the source may be revealed. At this time unless the sellers stop selling them (which is doubtful) it is up to you as a buyer to refuse to buy them without proper identification. In other words, make the seller send you 1200dpi images of the front and back of the stamps and then compare them with my images. I have posted more pages on the issues I have discovered to be forged and have included an index page listing them with links.

New information is welcome and you may contact me through this website anytime.

As of September 2017 I have updated sections of this page and added the ultra-violet detection section.

The main movers of this junk now since 2014 and still to this day in 2017 are eBay sellers: armi777 based in Latvia.
asrm10 based in Latvia.
balticamber2011 based in Latvia.
kamalmedicine based in India.
kamalthematic based in India.
alphaomegaphilately based in India.
stampbank_of_london based in the United Kingdom.

I note that apparently some as you can see are the same seller using different user names.

These sellers are spamming and have been spamming eBay lots for several years now. They offer this junk at 99c start bids. Or they offer fake color proofs and fake inverts and fake imperforates for amounts that would not relate to true value of the genuine stamps. Namely because for most the genuine material was either destroyed or only found on archival press sheets of which very few were saved in the archive. Therefore, this junk offered by these sellers (which you can see nobody appears to care in the philatelic community) should be avoided because all you are doing if you buy it is to:

1.) Enable the producer of these fake reproductions to continue to rip you off!
2.) Enable sellers like these to continue to rip you off!
3.) Enable the flooding of the stamp market with these fake reproductions to the point that now over 50% and in some cases much more are now being sold to unknowing collectors and thus you are ripping off other collectors!

I noticed sales of four of the Saint Vincent 1986 World Cup Soccer Souvenir Sheets being sold on eBay from users asrm10 and armi777 based in Latvia. This seller is a large volume dealer and was and is offering these fakes in bulk lots of 5, 10 of each souvenir sheet. Also selling lots with all four of them in the one lot. The starting bid is 99c! Buyers constantly bid them up to $3.00 to $6.00 ranges. They all are selling thus they are now everywhere in the world! Thousands have been moved!
As of 2017 they are still offering and selling them. There are still only the four values offered as imperforates. For some weird reason the forger seems to have made only the four values. Perhaps he lost the printing materials needed to forge the other two values of the set.

I suspected that they are forgeries because other forgeries I have purchased from this same dealer. I recently purchased a lot of the four souvenir sheets the seller posted. I won and sure enough they are exactly the same as all the other forgeries I have written about. I got them for around $3.00 winning bid. This shows us how easily these are being spread across the world.

The sellers are playing dumb and are persisting in selling these and many other forgeries. Connected hand and foot are users asrm10, armi777 and raimissss and balticamber2011. The users real names are Antanas Miskinis and Raimonds Miskinis according to return addresses....business names are Argi-stamps and/or SIA stamps.

I now have everything together to present to you how to detect them and not get ripped off!!

ULTRA-VIOLET LIGHT DETECTION

I have discovered another way to detect many of the forgeries. Use an ultra-violet light on them!
In many cases with all the forgeries I have posted the now many pages for, I have found that many sets glow brightly like the fluorescent papers used on many, for example, Canadian stamps in the past. A word of caution on this though. Many forgeries I have found, which all have the yellowish gum, do not glow or have lower grades of brightness or have numerous fibers in the paper that glow. In quite a few cases I have found the sets to have mixed papers, as in , several values glow and several are either less bright or do not glow at all!
There are only two answers to this oddity that are possible. It is either the forger is so lazy that he just grabs whatever paper is handy or....there are numerous different printings of the forgeries and this has been going on much longer than my discovery of the early 2014 massive movement of the forgeries onto the market.

The basic rule to follow with all stamps produced by the Format Printers is,
THE IMAGE SIDE OF GENUINE STAMPS DO NOT GLOW AT ALL.
The Format Printers used basically all the same type of paper on all the stamps they produced in the 1980's as did they use the same gum type except for a couple sets they produced in 1989 when newer types of gum were becoming popular in the stamp printing business.

For the imperforate forgery of this issue that I have acquired, the forgery glow brightly as this image shows.
I use a genuine perforated souvenir sheet for the comparison.
Are perforated forgeries of this souvenir sheet out there or perhaps the stamp set has also been forged? Perhaps you have the answer to that question.....

Here are gum comparisons.

Gum Comparison of a Fake Souvenir Sheet with Original
This gum appears to still be PVA but without the greenish tint. It has been noted that other British issues like some of the Machin issues have this type of gum. The problem is it was not used until the late 90's. The gum is very shiny though which conflicts with the description of the gum known as PVAI (Layflat) used on the Machins. Yet the stamps lay perfectly flat on a surface whereas originals have a light bending from aging.
This is evidence showing even a later creation and since these imperforates did not appear on the market until 2014 and no such stamps like these have ever been on the market nor recorded, it proves these to be modern forgeries of the stamps.


Screen and Color Comparison of the Fake Stamp with Original Stamp
I will use the Spain $1.50 values for comparisons using an original I purchased recently in a full set.

Note the extreme difference in color on the fake stamp. The difference in the paper. The inferior screen pattern that lacks much of the details. As you can see the forgeries are completely different. The Format printers would never downgrade the quality like this!

Color comparison of the stamp image on the souvenir sheet


Color comparison of the cartoon image on the souvenir sheet


Now let's look at the fonts.


You can see that the fonts on the forgery are almost the same. Very hard to see a difference. If you look closely at the copyright symbol you can see that the C is centered left on the original whereas it is centered on the forgery. I also note here the difference in papers.

Now I will show reduced images of the original stamps with the forgeries. At the bottom table are links to the same images at full size. To big to fit the page of course as I scanned them all at 1200dpi.

Comparison of the Fake $1.50 Spanish Team Souvenir Sheet with the Original Souvenir Sheet


Now that you know what to look for it helps yes?
Still you can see that most people will not even notice it which is what the forger wants!

Comparison of the Fake $2.25 Scotland Team Souvenir Sheet with the Original Souvenir Sheet


This souvenir sheet is very dangerous as you can see. Not so obvious in differences.

Comparison of the Fake $2.50 Mexico Team Souvenir Sheet with the Original Souvenir Sheet


This one does have obvious differences. The darker area at the bottom is brownish compared to the blacker color on the originals. The grass playing field has very dull green colors in comparison to the vivid greens on the original.

Comparison of the Fake $5.50 England Team Souvenir Sheet with the Original Souvenir Sheet


This one is obvious. The forger really messed up on it or is having fun fooling collectors and dealers! The background color completely different as you can see. What is so blatantly obvious is the stamp. The background is not white!! Impossible to achieve unless purposely made. There is no color of white ever used on any color guides made by Format and therefore this is a complete fabrication made by the forger.

You can now see that there are differences between the two printings that you or anyone can detect.
You can also see how easily these can and will fool many collectors and dealers.

I do not know at this time if the rest of this set including the single issues have been forged yet. It is odd that only these four souvenir sheets were forged but it could just be the case that the rest of the set is...in the works.
You can now define the fake Saint Vincent 1986 World Cup Soccer Championship stamps easily and can now possibly avoid being ripped off! Sorry to say a lot of you already have been duped!

Here are links to images of each souvenir sheet both originals and forgeries. All are scanned at 1200dpi so the files are large. All were scanned at the same time with the same settings and nothing is enhanced. Using Scott Catalog numbers. Please be patient with downloading them because each file is around 16 to 17 megs.

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

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