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Herbert Bloch, a former chairman of the Philatelic Foundation's expert committee.
(Excerpts from 'Newfoundland Fakes and Forgeries' and Jean de Sperati - King of Counterfeits.)
Whether the forger is out to humiliate the expert - as Sperati claimed he wished to do - or simply wishes to profit from his work, the forgery must pass for something it isn’t. A stamp consists of various components: design, paper, ink, gum (if mint) or cancellation (if used) and sometimes perforations and watermark. The greater the number of these components to be duplicated the greater the chance the forgery will be detected.
It is for this reason that forgers prefer surcharges. They are very easy to duplicate. All that’s required is some type and ink. Surcharged stamps have to be examined very carefully often with extremely accurate measuring devices.
Sperati’s method did not differ significantly from his predecessors. His skills in photography and chemistry allowed him to duplicate the designs and colours of genuine stamps. He avoided those areas where his skills were weakest. For example, he was not good at making gum. Most of his forgeries are either used or unused without gum. Sperati did not attempt to produce fake perforations or watermarks.
His greatest asset was his ingenuity. He discovered a way of dissolving printing ink. He could remove the design of a stamp completely, leaving paper, cancellations, perforations and watermark intact (and of course genuine). He would then print a different denomination or different design of a more valuable stamp on this paper. A large number of Sperati’s forgeries, many dangerous, were created in this way.
Perhaps the best examples of his ingenuity were his forged Inverted Heads of Sardinia. In 1855, a set of stamps was printed with a coloured frame and a colourless embossed head of the King of Sardinia in the centre. In a small number of cases the embossed head is inverted. Some of the printer’s waste consisted of stamps with frame only-the centres were blank. This waste paper was acquired by forgers who added inverted embossed heads. The experts soon discovered these and the game was up.
Sperati proceeded differently. He took the genuine stamps, dissolved the frames and was left with genuine paper and genuine embossed heads (remember the heads were colourless). He then printed the new frames upside down. The experts were fooled. When they examined the stamps they did not even pay attention to the frames.
Sperati used the same technique to create forgeries of valuable surcharged stamps. He would dissolve the Ink of the design of a cheap stamp in a set of surcharged stamps-leaving the genuine surcharge. He then added the design of the most valuable stamp in the set. Once again, the experts would only examine the characteristics of the surcharge.
The paper Sperati used for his forgeries was also obtained from the margins of genuine sheets or from paper of the period. The printing inks he used are remarkably similar to the genuine. In fact, it is the colour of a forgery that most often gives it away. Sperati’s strength in this area perhaps lulled the experts into a false sense of security.
He made his dies using a photographic technique. This gave his designs great accuracy in detail and size. Many of the tests used to detect forgeries refer to the number of lines here or dots there. These tests were often ineffective against Sperati’s forgeries. His forgeries are quite often cancelled and in many cases the cancellations were genuine - obtained as we mentioned above by dissolving the ink of the designs of genuine stamps. In other cases, he used photography to copy genuine cancels. Although the ink used for these cancels was different in colour and texture from the genuine inks of the period the overall appearance of the cancel was adequate. Given all this, you say wonder how he was ever exposed.
Sperati began his career in stamp fakery at an early age in the city of Pisa. By the time he was 26 years of age, the business, now a family enterprise, was well underway and thriving. At this time, around 1910, his first fake quietly appeared at a Berlin auction. The unsuspecting victim at that sale was Dr. Heinrich Koehler, a leading German dealer whose highly respected firm still flourishes today.
Sperati's modus operandi for marketing his philatelic phonies was simple. He would manufacture a few high priced stamps and send them to various well-known experts for their opinion. Many were returned with certificates of authenticity. These he would put up at auction or offer them to a dealer in a city other than where the experts resided.
A few dealers eventually caught on to Sperati's duplicity, but nothing much happened.
By the 1920's Sperati devised other methods to fool those who knew his work - he made different handmade cancels to go with them.
During World War II, Sperati's trade paid off handsomely as stamps became an easily carried and easily hidden hedge against property confiscation. It was an ideal time for a counterfeiter. His luck ran out many times along the path of his crooked career but he always managed to wriggle his way off the hook.
In 1942, Sperati - now living in German-occupied France - sent a small selection of German stamps to a dealer in Lisbon seeking his approval. These were intercepted by the French authorities, who charged Sperati with illegally exporting stamps worth more than 60,000 francs. When an expert witness testified that the real value of the stamps was more in the order of 234,000 francs, Sperati felt obliged to admit they were fakes, and that he had been forging stamps for more than three decades.
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By 1954, at the age of 70 and with failing eyesight he was made an offer he couldn't refuse. The British Philatelic Association (BPA) - anxious to stop Sperati for good - simply bought him out! They bought up his stock and his printing materials, and brought out a booklet entitled “The Work of Jean de Sperati”, which identified all the Sperati forgeries then known. As more forgeries were identified, a second book was published in 2001. Today, collectors and dealers seek out Sperati's fakes, often pairing them up with the genuine article.
The BPA's action sent shock waves throughout philatelic circles. For the first time, the stamp world became aware of the magnitude of the forger's output of bogus stamps. For a price reputed to be anywhere from $15,000 to $40,000, the philatelic association got the ageing counterfeiter to turn over all his stock, dies, and proofs. But, most importantly, he agreed that he would never again produce a counterfeit stamp.
However, when Sperati died in 1957, it was discovered he had still been hard at work. "Just for fun", he confided just before his death.
In the long list of philatelic fakers, con-men, and counterfeiters, Jean de Sperati remains the master of them all. The BPA estimates that Sperati made between 50,000 and 70,000 worldwide forgeries during his long career. This consisted of 358 designs from over 30 countries. This fantastic total includes the many examples produced in the late forties and early fifties on thin hard machine made paper and sold in collections of 195 or even up to 281 different forgeries at a time. These are not the ones to fear especially as many have identifying handstamps on the back. No, it is those made earlier in his career on matching paper with only a pencil signature that are the real danger.
Many of his forgeries, some 566 varieties of stamps from 100 different countries, still lie buried in
collections today, cherished by their unsuspecting owners who purchased them through thoroughly legitimate channels. If they knew they were holding Sperati forgeries they would be overjoyed to know, also, that they have become desirable collector items and have realised relatively high prices - in some cases more than the price of the genuine stamp.
The Fastidious Forger - The Economist
Wikipedia - Philatelic Fakes and Forgeries
Sperati Forgery Index
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