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Please report any doubtful stamps you come across. Thanks! The philatelic market gets more and more contaminated by stamps that are not at all collectible, at least they are completely worthless, even though you may have paid lots for them. There are, as in many other branches in the society, crooks, bad guys (call them what you like) who does nothing else than trying to cheat you. Be aware of what you buy, and from whom you buy your stamps. These guys are very artistically skilled, in some cases even better than most postal administration's artists, who produce "stamps" (or better, labels) in the name of an existing country or territory, using the denomination of the existing currency used in the same countries as well, making it almost impossible for a novice collector to trace what stamp is the legal from the illegal (bogus). However, there are some charachteristics you can look out for, and some precautions you can do. Go to a website that shows images of stamps of a certain country, such as the postal administration's own. Links to these websites are found here.We have also started up an on-line catalogue of stamps issued in the third Millennium, for this reason. A variety of countries postal administrations have already joined. Thus, you have the advantage of viewing the stamps "under one roof". Check it out here. There, have a look of last year's issues. How many stamps each issue? Normal denominations? Stamp sizes? How many issues in a year? Any special inscription repeated on each stamp, such as the postal administration's logo, coat-of-arms of the country, etc? Have these things in mind when you plan to purchase stamps from that country. If you see the stamps you're interested in are different from above, be cautious. In many cases, the illegal "stamps" more often than not are issued in long sets, may be 8-10 "stamps" or more, and may be also 3 or 4 different miniature sheets. The illegal "stamps" are very colourful and look 'delicious', more often than not they are bigger in size than the legal stamps issued in that country. The illegal stamps are 99% thematic, and the themes of the stamps has usually nothing at all to do with the country, territory, or island itself (what does a stamp featuring a Swedish winter rally champion have to do with a tiny, tropical island?). Use common sense. Another thing you can try is to buy an Official First Day Cover of a suspicious issue. Up to date, you will never find such a cover from an illegal issue. Producers of those "stamps" does not bother issuing such covers, since having envelopes printed and then having the stamps stuck to these, and then having them cancelled, which would incur having a rubber stamp made, would be too much labour or fuzz for the money they might get. Beware of long series of stamps and blocks issued by tiny island republics. A small Caribbean island having a population of 20 thousand or less... how many stamps are reasonable for the daily correspondence used by inhabitants and tourists? As a normal rule, tiny island republics issue approx. 4 sets of stamps per year with themes that really has something to do with the island. Each set consist of 1 to 4 stamps, and First Day Covers are always issued. Maximum once a year an souvenir sheet is issued along with a stamp issue. Keep this in mind as a rule. If you are in doubt you can always contact that island's postmaster, philatelic bureau, or even us. This procedure might take a month or two, but what does it matter when you saved your money? For all our friends out there, we now publish a list of countries, territories or islands, from which we know illegal stamps already have been produced. The Universal Postal Union compiles this list:
If you're running a web site, please help fight the illegal and dubious "stamp" issues. These stamps just do harm not only to the industry, but to you, your customers, and any collector. Please make a web page about this problem. The more who show they want to fight this problem, the better the chance we all get rid of the same? In case you feel it troublesome to edit a web page about the problem, the we suggest you strongly to place the image above on the start (index) page of your web site, to show you're clean, you are also against the illegal, bogus "stamps". Then link the image to this page http://www.collectorstarget.com/stamp-fight.html In case you come across stamps that are dubious, please let us know and we will investigate, and let you know the outcome. Please let us know any characteristics, such as year, country, denomination, number of stamps, where you found these stamps (shop, website, etc). In case a website, please forward the whole page to us.
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