Postage Stamps

French Postage Stamp Send Letters And Parcels

Well, as its name implies, these are stamps used by the French to send letters and parcels throughout their country. Their postal system, original created in the 1840's (following the success of the British system), has had to deal with a problem common to just about every field of human endeavor: forgeries. It might sound strange, making fakes of postage stamps; after all, the profit margin can not hope to approach that of so-called "funny money" - forged currency.

Yet, the "enterprise" has its pluses. In general, people do not pay close attention to a stamp. After all, the amount is usually rather minimal. Also, once the stamp is canceled, the cancellation mark tends to obscure the image. So, for businesses engaged in bulk mailing, fake stamps offer a means of saving considerable sums of money.

In just the last century, the French had to deal with three major forgery incidents involving their postal system. In December of 1900, three new series of postage stamps were issued to replace the "Type Sage" stamps. Their values were one, two and five Francs, a tidy sum, for the time. However, the stamps were not popular because of a reduction in their postal rates. Wow, a reduction! If only that were the case today. Yet, I digress. Still, the forgeries were considered quite good, only distinguished by four minor errors. It is easy to see why they could be slipped into general circulation.

As a side note, the forgeries have been the subject of over thirty articles on the subject of fake stamps from 1912 to as late as 1990! That says something for the quality of the artwork and effort put into creating them.

Then, in 1930 a stamp to commemorate the Bureau International du Travail (also known as the BIT) was the subject of yet another forgery. After a thorough investigation by the postal inspectors, it was determined that the text font and the alignment of the characters were a dead giveaway. As the denominations were only fifty cents and one Franc, the forgeries were not a major blow to the postal service's income.

As late as 1975, yet another incident occurred. In January of 1971, the 0.50 Franc Marianne de Bequet was released when the postal rate was increased from 0.40 Francs to 0.50. By early 1975, stories began to circulate that forgeries of the stamp were being printed. Some people thought this was just a ploy to generate interest among philatelists (stamp collectors). After all, the postal rate had been raised to 0.80 Francs in 1974; why would anyone create forgeries of an older series of stamps?

Yet, in time, it was established that fakes had been slipped into circulation. It is interesting to note that forged stamps are not treated the same as fake money, some collectors actual want them! As they are often unique and in short supply, this makes them highly desirable to philatelists.