Rare Australian stamps: forgeries

A really interesting piece of Australian philatelic history that is not well known is the repeated forgery of rare Australian stamps.

One of the most significant scamming attempts came in 1932, when the crooks involved attempted to fool the Australian Post Office and, by association, the Commonwealth of Australia.

It was an unusual attempt, but the intention of the fraudsters was to eventually sell forged Tattersall lottery tickets.

The target for the forgery was one of the most enduring and renowned Australian stamps, the very rare ‘Two Pound Kangaroo on Map’.

This old stamp is the most valuable Australian stamp ever to be produced, and is sought the world over by collectors.

The main figure behind the forgeries was the Italian national Jean Sperati, who was living in France at the time and was notorious for pulling off many of the world’s most remarkable stamp forgeries.

Because of the regular impurities in the printing of stamps during this time, it was very hard for either members of the public or authorities to identify forgeries.

Although it was never proved that Sperati was behind this series of forgeries he did spend some time in jail over the affair.