The 1932 Airmail Forgeries
by Audrius Brazdeikis | Dec 28th, 2009 | Category: stamp forgeries
Forgeries of these stamps (Scott C59, Michel 344) were made for packet trade. Both the originals and forgeries are lithographed but forgeries are more crudely re-produced. Forgeries exist both in perforated and imperforate. There are a number of distinguishing characteristics of these forged stamps. The key characteristics of Lithuania Mi 344 of the Michel 344 (Scott C59) genuine and forged stamp are illustrated below. The first three letters of the inscription “D.L.K. Gediminas” are deformed. Some of these forgeries have grease watermarks.
The key identifying characteristics
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Hello
Does it exist a forgery for the whole series, or just for the M344?
Hi Michel,
Thanks for visiting our website. Complete airmail series of Mi 340-347 (Sc C55-C62) and Mi 348-355 (Sc C63-C70) both perforate and impeforate are forged. I will upload more scans when time permits.
Hello Audrius
Thanks for your prompt answer. I bought quite a lot of them in a stamp shop in Paris, not on an auction site. The only thing I can do now is to use them as wallpaper.
Michel
Hi Michel,
Sorry to hear about that. These airmail forgeries have become popular collecting objects among many collectors. I often see these stamps listed and sold on eBay and Delcampe. Why don’t you list your forgeries on eBay?
Hello Audrius
I have placed some of them on Delcampe. Here is the link
http://www.delcampe.fr/page/item/id,0115292356,language,F.html
I wonder if I should write FAUX on the back.
Michel
Hi Michel,
It is always a good practice to write FAUX or FALSCH or FORGERY on the back of such stamps.
This forgery was first described in 1998 Lynn’s Stamp News.
I always find it funny that people try to concentrate on tiny details of the overprint and miss the big picture.
The “watermarks” are drawn on the stamp. It is a non-watermarked paper! One can spot this from a mile away.
See the picture of the Lynn’s News cover in the FORUM section of this site.
Thanks Vitaly for posting addition information and the scan of old Linn’s issue. There are many stamps without visible grease watermark patterns. Therefore, not everybody easily can spot ” watermarks”. To an untrained eye many of these airmails look basically the same. Perhaps that is why we used to receive so many repeat questions about these stamps. Posting pictures here was useful and almost immediately flood of emails stopped.
Quite a shock to the system, when I checked my Airmail issue, and found it fake.
Dear Maria,
Sorry to hear that you’ve found a fake airmail in your collection. There are plenty of fake Lithuania airmails in the marketplace. Fortunately, the replacement is quite inexpensive.