Angola bogus stamps – and a story behind Fournier forgery
As Angola is these days part of the “evil empire of IGPC” (philatelic agency, which produces most of the topical stamps for small islands and developing countries), I was not hardly surprised when I lately received a selection of pretty CTO-used Angola topical stamps. But I was slightly amazed when they all turned out as complete and utter bogus (for some I suspected it, but not all).
First some wildlife bogus stamps (yes, these got me fooled as the design looks very nice):
1999 Angola - wildlife bogus stamps
Then some turtles with scouting theme. This set was simply screaming out lout “I’m a bogus”, LOL. Notice how the “printed fancy-cancel” is slightly misaligned, causing a white halo to appear around the cancel.
2000 Angola - Turtles and scouting, a set of 6 bogus stamps.
And finally some bonsai trees (I suspected this being a bogus):
2000 Angola - bonsai trees, set of 6 bogus stamps.
Sadly eBay does have truckloads of similar items for sale with staggering asking prices (whereas I paid roughly one tenth of a cent per stamp for the above). Most likely many of them are from the same “unknown” source.
Anyway… The above got me thinking about another Angola related philatelic “bogus” issue with better known, and IMHO far more interesting history.
Story behind Fournier Tipo Coroa forgeries
One of the most famous stamp designs worldwide is “Tipo Coroa” (portuguese for crown type). The stamps were used in former Portuguese colonies (Angola, Mozambique, Cap Verde etc) during the reign of Louis I, and their noble design features the portrait of Portugese royal crown.
These are hugely popular stamps, and thus there exists a large number of forgeries – most famous of which are made by legendary master forger Fournier. The Fournier facsimiles are usually of very high quality, but this time Fournier made a fatal mistake. Fournier used the design of Angola as the basis for his work for all the colonies. Unfortunately he was unaware that the design of Angola stamp was slightly different (crown more rounded) than in other colonies. Thanks to this collectors can somewhat easily identify Fournier forgeries of Tipo Coroa stamps.
1870 Angola - The first stamp issue of Angola served as an example for master forger Fourier when he created facsimiles for other Tipo Coroa stamps.
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The turtles on the second set of stamps are United States species, another sign of the stamps “bogusness.” Three are box turtles (Terrepene carolina), two are painted turtles (Chrysemus picta), and one is some kind of sea turtle.
Thanks Brian,
this is nice piece of additional information. It never occurred to me to check in more detail what kind of turtles those are, and where they live.
Unfortunately the black Crown stamp for Angola shown above is NOT an original . This 5 Reis black Crown stamp of Angola is a forgery itself , and it is not even a Fournier forgery but a Spiro forgery .
Hi Eztrif,
I know the above stamp is not the Fournier forgery. But how do You see it’s done by Spiro? Please educate me.
Have a look at the following website , it tells you about Spiro forgeries : http://www.portugal.tabacaria.com.pt/Coroa/Angola/Spiro.htm
Thanks. That is definitely very useful page