I am pleased to introduce to the readers of this website, Clark Frazier, my second contributing author. Clark surfed into my website several weeks ago and we swapped some emails concerning "FAKE SPOTTING" on eBay. "FAKE SPOTTING" is the American equivalent of the British hobby "TRAIN SPOTTING" except there are no trains involved. Just horrible alterations posing as genuine rarities scattered among the auction listings on eBay.

The stamp images below were not purchased on eBay but are important lessons to be learned that alterations and fakes lay in waiting in all sorts of places.

A genuine Scott 519 is part of the Washington / Franklin regular issue of October 1917. It has a double line watermark and is perforated 11 all around on a common perforation gauge. More precisely it is Perf 11-72 on a Specialty Gauge. It was produced by the FLAT PLATE press printing method, and popped out of the presses in sheets of 400 subjects in 4 panes of 100.

This is one of the most commonly faked stamps because it is so easily made from a Scott 344. Also see Fake Reperfed Scott 519 - Revised June 2002 for more history, specifications and the hows and why's this issue came about.

A Gallery of Bogus Stuff Part 1
A Gallery of Bogus Stuff Part 2
A Gallery of Bogus Stuff Part 3
A Gallery of Bogus Stuff Part 4
A Gallery of Bogus Stuff Part 5

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Hello Richard,

Attached is a scan of a fake.......

......... Also attached is a scan of a fake 519. In addition to the quite well defined and round perforation holes, there appears to be a darkening of the semicircular edges, perhaps with a pencil. The reason may have been to disguise the problem area on the left where the perforations cut through the cancel and there is no ink on the sides of the perforation under the cancel because the cancel was applied first. Since this stamp was probably made from a used 344 multiple, the ends of the perforations are not filed. Note the short perforations at the top right. Perhaps this was the edge of the imperf multiple.

These stamps did not come from eBay. I have had these stamps for many years.

If you are interested, I will be making more scans and can send them to you.

You have permission to use them on your web site if you wish.
Best regards,

Clark Frazier

Clark adds some more info for the beginning collector of "rarities" to be found on eBay.

..... It looks to me like most eBay listings on US flat plate coils, 461, 519, etc. are a disaster for the unwitting buyer. I had been planning to sell some specialized US items within the next few months, but it is looking like that the bad listings will reduce the value of anything which does not have a valid certificate.

Clark Frazier

The image of the wheels shown here illustrates how flat plate press stamps were perforated. The sheet of stamps is shown as the letter "C". The wheel "A" has pins that punch the holes into the sheet of stamps and line up with matching holes in wheel "B".

Because the BoEP (Bureau of Engraving and Printing) used this method, it makes the forger's life very difficult. And makes for detecting fake perfs easy for us, as will be explained more below.

This is fairly typical of reperf jobs because most common perforation gauges are not very accurate and are metrically based. Most fakers use metrically based perf gauges to create there perfing tools. Remember that perf 11 is 11 holes per 2 centimeters. The BoEP used the inch system and hence the error shown to the left. We can confidently say that this edge has been badly reperforated by the faker / alternator / forger. Not only is the gauging or spacing wrong, the hole diameters are the nearly perfectly round.

The Thing To Remember About Perforations .....
is that because the BoEP issues are rotary perforated the genuine perforation holes will be oval-ish or elongated slightly.

UPDATE: In an email dated Nov 18th, 2002 Clark responds:
Hi Richard,
..... Good catch! I checked the stamp, and indeed the perforation is 11-70 (On a Specialist Gauge) ......

In the next few weeks and months I will be adding more images and words for a whole bunch of fakes I have purchased on Ebay and since I am not worried that the fakers will retaliate I will even tell you who they are. This is installment number 18 (I think) so come back and visit as I will probably be doing a new page every other week. I can be reached at: nerdman@ix.netcom.com

Updated 10:20 pm November 17th 2002

Thanks for visiting this site. I hope you learn something new as I am having fun doing this and stirring up the "doodoo" so to speak. You, the visitor, have my permission to copy my pages and images for the purpose of showing others how to look for fakes and forgeries. You also have my permission to link to my pages and to share the link paths to others. I only ask in return for you to send me an e-mail if I have made a mistake or have done some other technical blunder that in my rush to put these pages up would cause the visitor confusion. Please also visit my other website www.slingshotvenus.com and support the live music arts.