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THE MODERN FAKE SAINT VINCENT GRENADINES 1985 QUEEN ELIZABETH 85TH BIRTHDAY STAMP ISSUES

Saint Vincent Grenadines 1985 Queen Elizabeth 85th Birthday Forgery Set
Scott# 496-500 Stanley Gibbons# 403-410, MS411
Saint Vincent Grenadines 1985 Queen Elizabeth 85th Birthday Stamp Forgery Set
Saint Vincent Grenadines 1985 Queen Elizabeth 85th Birthday Stamp Forgery Souvenir Sheet
Saint Vincent 1985 Queen Elizabeth 85th Birthday Imperforate Forgery Set
Tons of this set of forgery strips has been offered and is presently being sold on eBay by user balticamber2011. They have been sold by armi777 and asrm10 as well. All these users are associated and based in Latvia. All know these are forgeries but persist to this day to sell them.
Saint Vincent Grenadines 1985 Queen Elizabeth 85th Birthday Imperforate Stamp Forgery Set offered by balticamber2011
I already created a page showing all the souvenir sheets from this series that have been forged. During that time I did not find forgeries of the single stamp issues for St. Vincent Grenadines. I have now.

UPDATE 2018 WARNING!!!!

It has come to my attention that the Michel Catalog editors were fooled into adding notes in the latest edition of their catalogs that inverts exist of this issue and others. It started with the forger or one of his associates fooling Christian Calves into issuing False Expertising certificates on fake inverts. Here is one for this issue.
Saint Vincent Grenadines 1985 85th Birthday of Queen Elizabeth Invert Forgery Set Falsly Expertised by Christian Calves
I contacted the expert directly and this is his reply.
 Christian Calves email response to expertizing forgeries as genuine
In english it reads.

Dear Sir,
I am interested in the e-mail you sent us on May 25 about the stamps printed by Format International Security Printers.
I have browsed your site carefully and have been very favorably impressed by the breadth of your research that demonstrates a thorough knowledge of the subject.
They allowed me to read information that I did not have in my possession. Rest assured that I will take them into account, when I will have to appraise stamps printed by this company.
With thanks,
Best regards,
Christian Calves

With this you can see we now have a very huge problem with stamp expertising services. The forger and his cronies will go to great lengths to try to get their fake junk authenticated as if genuine to fool you into buying them.

THEY THEN TOOK IT FARTHER!

I was notified by other experts that the most recently published Michel Catalogs have new notes added that inverts exist of these issues! I immediately contacted the editors of Michel catalog. Here is the response.
Michel Catalog Editors email response to noting the Format Invert forgeries in the Catalogs
If you cannot read the image, this is what it says.

Dear Mr. Lowe,
I am answering only today because your mail reached me after workend of the day before the German day of reunification, our national holiday.
Thank you very much for your information, which was not totally new to us, as we got another warning some months ago. At that time I deleted the footnotes concerning the inverts from our database. Yours sincerely
ppa Oskar Klan

So if there is any doubt remaining that the expertising certificates and/or the notes in Michel Catalog are false in all regards then contact them yourself to get the answer. Sadly these false certificates and newly published catalogs are now on the market causing havoc to dealers and collectors worldwide. Thanks to one person....

The forger who is a wholesale stamp dealer and his cronies are professional cons that will go to the most extreme lengths to get fake material like this to appear genuine. They are a network of dealers around the world and are very powerful entities in the philatelic community. You can see this just by what has happened here.

YOU MUST BE ALERT AND DO EXTENSIVE RESEARCH BEFORE BUYING ANYTHING LIKE THIS!!

END UPDATE 2018 WARNING

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 September of 2017.
The set, souvenir sheet and imperforates imaged above are completely fake!

UPDATE MAY 2018

Well, as I thought inverts are on the market! Recently many inverts have appeared including as I predicted fake Leaders of the World Trains and cars inverts for Nevis. Some are even appearing with Calves Expertising Certificates! BOGUS! Two appeared in the recent Gaertner auctions and now a seller on Delcampe posted the imaged set and around twenty more different fake inverts. Have shut all of them down. Sadly now, one of the biggest dealers in France just got victimized showing us that everyone no matter how big or small is being effected by this. It shows us that the consignor that was shut down at Gaertner's in 2015 and had these forgeries sent back to him has just released them to more victims this year! The seller on Delcampe wants anywhere from 400EURO to 1000EURO for a set! I wonder how much he got ripped off for. Don't be fooled by the certificate. They are worth nothing! Again, very obvious they are forgeries. Look at the selvage. As I explain on many of the other detection pages for most of the forgeries, there are no perforation holes running through the selvage on the forgeries like on genuine panes of these stamps.
Saint Vincent Grenadines 1985 Queen Elizabeth 85th Birthday Inverted Stamp Forgery Set

END MAY 2018 UPDATE

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 complete sets of perforated and imperforate forgeries of the Saint Vincent Grenadines Queen Elizabeth Leaders of the World 1985 85th Birthday issues. All are/have been offered online right now as I write this on September 2, 2017.

I can also tell you that I have discovered that many more "modern" issues for Saint Vincent and other countries are being forged. Mainly "errors" such as these and varieties 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 have been 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.

I purchased the above imaged set of perforated forged stamp pairs from a dealer in Canada who did not even realize that they were forgeries. I purchased them recently along with many other sets which have all proven to be the same type of forgeries I have documented over the passed two years.
The souvenir sheet forgery I received in a bulk lot of 5 from Latvia based seller asrm10 on eBay in January 2016.

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

Here are gum comparisons.

Gum Comparison of a Fake 85th 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.

Saint Vincent Grenadines 1985 Queen Elizabeth 85th Birthday Forgery and Original Gum Comparison of Full Stamps

Screen and Color Comparison of the Fake Stamp with Original Stamp
I will use the 40c values for comparisons using a original specimen from a set of specimen overprinted blocks I purchased recently from a dealer in India. Noting this seller also offers some forgeries as legitimate stamps. Not a good seller to buy from because when informed he persists to offer them on eBay. I only purchased the blocks from this seller because he was the only one offering the specimen overprinted stamps for this issue.

Note the extreme difference in color on the fake stamp. The inferior screen pattern that lacks much of the details.

Left Stamp
Saint Vincent Grenadines 1985 Leaders of the World Queen Elizabeth 85th Birthday Fake with Original Screen and Color Comparison of Left Stamp

Right Stamp
Saint Vincent Grenadines 1985 Leaders of the World Queen Elizabeth 85th Birthday Fake with Original Screen and Color Comparison of Right Stamp

Now let's look at the fonts.
Saint Vincent Grenadines 1985 Leaders of the World Queen Elizabeth 85th Birthday 40c Fake with Original Comparison of the Fonts

You can see that the fonts on the genuine stamp are bolder. On all the genuine stamps for this issue the "I"s are much thicker than on the forgeries.

Now I will show reduced images of the original stamps with the forgeries.

Comparison of the 40c Queen Elizabeth 85th Birthday Stamp Forgery Pair with a Genuine Stamp Pair
Saint Vincent Grenadines 1985 Leaders of the World Queen Elizabeth 85th Birthday 40c Forgery Stamp Pair with Genuine Stamp Pair Comparison

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!

Noticeable Differences:
Lower side background is shades of light blue on the forgery. Lower side background is shades of light green on genuine stamps.
The country name and value background is yellow-green on genuine stamps versus green on the forgeries.
The "dot" between the "Leaders of the World" logos is much larger on the genuine stamps.

Comparison of the 75c Queen Elizabeth 85th Birthday Stamp Forgery Pair with a Genuine Stamp Pair
Saint Vincent Grenadines 1985 Leaders of the World Queen Elizabeth 85th Birthday 75c Forgery Stamp Pair with Genuine Stamp Pair Comparison

Noticeable Differences:
The side background is shades of pink on the forgery. The side background is shades of salmon pink on genuine stamps.
The queens hat on the right stamp is shades of blue on genuine stamps versus green-blue on the forgeries.
The country name and value background is orange-tan on genuine stamps versus dull yellow on the forgeries.
The "dot" between the "Leaders of the World" logos is much larger on the genuine stamps.

Comparison of the $1.10 Queen Elizabeth 85th Birthday Stamp Forgery Pair with a Genuine Stamp Pair
Saint Vincent Grenadines 1985 Leaders of the World Queen Elizabeth 85th Birthday $1.10 Forgery Stamp Pair with Genuine Stamp Pair Comparison

Noticeable Differences:
The lower side background is shades of tan-yellow on the forgery. The lower side background is shades of yellow with a light touch of green on genuine stamps.
The queens hat on the left stamp is shades of blue on genuine stamps versus shades of light green on the forgeries.
The queens hat on the right stamp is shades of bright lavender on genuine stamps versus dull lavender on the forgeries.
The country name and value background is very light gray on genuine stamps versus dark gray on the forgeries.
The "dot" between the "Leaders of the World" logos is much larger on the genuine stamps.

Comparison of the $1.75 Queen Elizabeth 85th Birthday Stamp Forgery Pair with a Genuine Stamp Pair
Saint Vincent Grenadines 1985 Leaders of the World Queen Elizabeth 85th Birthday $1.75 Forgery Stamp Pair with Genuine Stamp Pair Comparison

Noticeable Differences:
The side background colors are very close on this pair.
The country name and value background is light red-pink on genuine stamps versus light lavender-pink on the forgeries.
The "dot" between the "Leaders of the World" logos is much larger on the genuine stamps.

You can see that there is a lot of differences between the two printings.

THE SOUVENIR SHEET

I noted at the start of this page that I had already created a general page showing numerous forged souvenir sheets from this issue.

DO NOT BUY IMPERFORATE 85TH BIRTHDAY SOUVENIR SHEETS!

The first and basically the only reason the imperforate souvenir sheets of the 85th 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. Only archival examples from some countries have ever been offered on the market. Those being from press sheets or in presentation folders by the printer. All of a sudden 30 years later these appear! So you don't smell a rat?

Comparison of the Fake Saint Vincent Grenadines 85th Birthday of Queen Elizabeth Imperforate Souvenir Sheet with an Original Souvenir Sheet
Saint Vincent Grenadines 1985 85th Birthday Fake with Original Souvenir Sheet Comparison

Imperforates of the Saint Vincent souvenir sheet did not exist until now. Archival pieces were found but they are perforated and come from the press sheet with large selvage (imperforate) around them.
Obvious difference:
Look at the background color of the images of the queen. On originals the shading of the Black and white photo has a reddish tint. On fake souvenir sheets it is just black and white. The grass on the lawn is much lighter green on the originals than on the fakes. The overall color is much darker on the forgeries. The castle is yellow-brown on the genuine souvenir sheet versus greenish-brown on the forgeries.

Because of the fact that a major portion of leaders in the stamp community wish to turn a blind eye on these forgeries. Because of dealers and buyers who are afraid to "step up to the plate" because of fear of being ridiculed by self proclaimed "experts" or because they don't want to get involved, the forgers will continue to forge more and more sets. They have already effected other issues that have nothing to do with Leaders of the World issues such as Nauru 1982 Scouts, Barbuda 1983 Manned Flight and others showing us the wide range of stamps they are capable of forging and possibly have already forged. Soon you will be the victim when you buy that fake high valued Orchid stamp or that high priced definitive set you have dreamed of getting or what you thought to be a genuine error or variety which in the end only turns out to be fabricated by these forgers and nobody wants it when you go to sell it or your children go to sell it.

You have a choice.

Continue to ignore this problem that the majority of stamp leaders and editors seem to be trying to do just like they have with unauthorized reprints and "illegal" stamps in the past. Or spread the word and complain to your contacts and leaders that these problems need to be exposed and described in magazines, newspapers and catalogs before every stamp issue made in modern times from the 1970's onward falls victim to being a suspected forgery and in turn you or your friends or associates will fall victim to it when trying to buy or sell them. These forgers are professionals and have been here for decades unseen. They will continue to harm us unless people like you stand up and take notice!

This problem effects everyone because now instead of the value being based on a set quantity of the issued stamp, we now have double, triple or even more in quantity placed on the market. It will therefore depreciate the stated value of them in the catalogs simply because they will not research them and "assume" there are tons available when in reality for many sets the originals are and have become difficult to find.

I am simply the one who is discovering them because of my research on the printer.
Indeed several issues that I have researched and obtained the original varieties of are effected. This set does not effect me at all. I only own what is imaged and have a few of the archival pieces from the Bileski estate. I am a professional tradesman and have never depended on stamps to live on. There are many that do depend on stamp sales though and it is for them also that I have created this section of the website.

You can now define the fake Saint Vincent Grenadines 1985 Queen Elizabeth 85th Birthday stamps and souvenir sheet 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 TOPRETURN TO TOP

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UPDATED LAST ON: 05-Jan-2019 11:30 AM