FAMOUS STAMP FORGERY

Manawatu Times, Volume 63, Issue 81, 6 April 1938, Page 13

FAMOUS STAMP FORGERY

Tricks of the Trade Explained

fpHERE was recently sold in London the most notable stamp forgery which the history of the British Post Office has on record. It is a copy of the “Stock Exchange Shilling” stamp. These forgeries were placed on sale at the Stock Exchange post office, and were mainly used to. prepay the cost of telegrams, and were on sale for nearly two years, during 1871-72. The fact that such wholesale forgery was being carried on remained undiscovered for nearly a quarter of a century after the last was sold, and the discovery was eventually made, not by a lynx-eyed official, but by a London stamp dealer, Mr. Charles Nissen, of High Holborn.

These green stamps had two white letters in the top corners, which appeared in reverse order in the bottom corners. In the top corners the first letter indi-

cated the row from which the stamp had been taken, and the second letter

its position in that row. Mr. Nissen was looking through some hundreds of these stamps which he had purchased from the Government when he noticed an impossible combination of these letters, which also called his attention to the fact that their designs were slightly blurred. On removing these from the paper, he found that the paper had no watermark. That settled the status of the specimens as forgeries. But though communication was at once made to the Post Office, the scent had become too cold for the forger to be discovered. How much the gang—for there must have been several in the plot—made out of their misguided efforts nobody knows, but one thing is certain: they were never caught.