The watermark is another stumbling-block with the stamp faker of small means. He has no opportunity of procuring paper impressed with all the various watermarks, and so he often prints on ordinary paper, and trusts to the philatelist's ignorance or lack of examining powers. Of course, the beginner is often caught by such practices, but it is really wonderful how soon a serious collector grows to know at sight the real and the unreal.
An ingenious trick of the forger in a small way of business consists in transforming a common stamp into a valuable one. His work is not very arduous, and his apparatus costs but a few pence. All he needs is an aptitude for drawing, a few paints, brushes, and some chemicals. He selects, first of all, an issue where the stamps all bear an identical design and are printed in the same colour, the value, and perhaps an additional word or two, only being printed in a distinctive colour. His choice of stamp is by no means limited, for in Queen Victoria's time it was a favourite arrangement with many Colonies for the head and ornamentation to be printed in a shade of purple and the name of the colony and the price to vary on each value.
The forger takes a nice copy of the halfpenny, and cleans out the price and any features which make the stamp distinctive, by means of chemicals; then he fills in the blank areas with the particular lettering—using, of course, the correct colour—of a high-priced stamp. His work takes but a few minutes, and in this time he can transform a label worth, say, a penny into one catalogued at, perhaps, ten shillings. This form of faking is particularly dangerous, because such distinguishing marks as perforations, watermark, and quality of paper, are correct in every detail.
The length to which some forgers will go is positively amazing. A few years back a case came to light where one of these rogues regularly used real stamp-paper on which to print his worthless imitations. His plan was to buy a whole sheet of low-priced unused stamps, to remove all the printing by chemical means, and then to print on the blank paper so obtained a complete sheet of high-priced stamps. Of course, he had to select his paper and his stamps with care, but this was a matter simple enough. It is interesting to point out that the home authorities, seeing the possibility of such practices, have made it a rule to use one watermark for adhesives of low value and another for those of high value.
What is the best way to tell whether a specimen is a forgery? This is a question often asked. The first test is the watermark, but sufficient has been said already to show that too much faith must not be placed on this detail, especially as we may add that a very respectable imitation may be produced by painting the back of the label with oil. The next point to note is the perforation. These marks must be shaped in a business-like way, and be of the correct number as indicated by the catalogues. The third point is the printing, and the fourth the colour of the ink used. Lastly, the design should be compared with an identical stamp known to be genuine. Beyond such simple tests as these the collector needs to exercise ordinary common sense in arriving at a conclusion. If, say, a specimen is nice and fresh, and the catalogue tells us that it is at least fifty years old, a certain amount of suspicion might not be out of place.
It is not always a simple matter to know whether a stamp is a forgery or not. Cases are on record where the postal authorities themselves have been unable to distinguish between the real and the unreal. Some years ago the shilling value of Great Britain was counterfeited and used for postal purposes not once or twice, but some thousands of times, and never an atom of suspicion was excited. The case is recorded by Mr. F. J. Melville in his work, "Chats on Postage Stamps," in the following words:
"A romantic forgery, and one of almost colossal magnitude, was discovered in 1898. About that time a large quantity of British one shilling stamps—those of the 1865 type in green, with large uncoloured letters in the corners—came on the market, though, as they had been used on telegram forms, they ought to have been destroyed; probably the guilty parties relied on this official practice, not always honoured in observance, as offering a security against not merely the tracing of the offence, but the discovering of the fraud itself.
"Anyhow, after a lapse of twenty-six years, it was found that amongst these one shilling stamps there was a large proportion of forgeries (purporting to be from Plate V.), all used on July 23, 1872, at the Stock Exchange Telegraph Office, London, E.C. More recent discoveries show that the fraud was continued over twelve months, and, as an indication of the precautions taken by the forgers, Plate VI. (which came into use in March, 1872) was duly imitated, although the change of the small figures was a detail probably never noticed by members of the general public.
Stamps bearing National Emblems 1 New South Wales 5 Sweden 9 Switzerland 2 Belgium 6 Russia 10 Turkey 3 Mauritius 7 Italy 11 Brazil 4 Japan 8 Bosnia