Unfortunately, forgeries are very common in philately. Especially for the rarer and more expensive copies. You have counterfeits of various shapes and sizes. Forgeries of whole pieces, reprinted stamps, renewed gum so that they are MNH again, false overprints, false cancels, etc etc.
Sometimes they are so well done that even experts find them difficult or impossible to discover. Sometimes they are obvious.
I recently came across one of the latter. This time from the area of Italy. Like many west-European countries, Italy had special post offices in the Levant/Asia Minor, for their trading settlements there. Regular stamps were overprinted, usually with the name of the place in question, but sometimes not.
Likewise in Constantinople, present-day Istanbul. Regular stamps were overprinted there and used for mail from 1908 to the First World War and then again from 1921 to 1923. In general they are fairly to very rare.
No wonder I was surprised when I came across six stamps that seemed to be from Constantinople. Even from the first series of overprints in 1908. They looked fresh. Too good to be true? Yes they are.
The 10, 20 and 30 Para over print are not quite right; it seems as if the Para is loosely placed behind the number. Als it is not as "fat" as the originals. With the 1, 2 and 4 Piastre it is very obvious. A dot between the number and Piastre does not occur at all!
And then there are the cancellations. The cancellation on the 10 para is unreadable, but it is a three-ring cancellation. I am not an expert on Italian cancellations, but as far as I can tell they were not used in overseas offices. The 20 para has a stamp Savi... Probably Savigno in Italy mainland. The 30 para is even stamped with a stamp of Roma. And the 2 Piastre with a flag advertising stamp. The location of the 4 Piastre is unclear, but the number 48 at the bottom usually indicates a cancellation-version or street where a post office is located. So unclear, but the imprint was already false....
So, what to do with these forgeries? Include them in your collection because you can't place the priceless originals? Keep them separate as a "study object"? Or just throw them away? then no one can fall for the forgery anymore.
I think I just keep them separate from my collection. They're so obviosly fake that I don't think anyone else will fall for them.
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