The unprecedented deluge of fake Scout stamps, covers and cancellations that recently has flooded the philatelic market has provided the impetus for this series.  It is true that much of this material has been sold as genuine for years, but now presumably the dam has burst.  The time is long past for a comprehensive and detailed review of the forgeries and counterfeits.  This has caused great concern to Scouts on Stamps collectors and has cost us thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands of dollars.

The fakers have practiced their arts among the unwary for many years, but now have apparently invaded our field with a vengeance.  This is undoubtedly due to the extreme popularity of Scouts on Stamps collecting.  For some years the forgers concentrated on the higher priced and rarer issues and overprints where the profit in a single transaction could be made.

Now however, the merchants of mendaciousness are mass producing and are taking even bolder steps.  They are piling up small profits on a greater number of items.  I refer to phony Australian first day covers and to the Viet Nam issue, where not only fake first day cancellations have been discovered, but also presumably artful imitations of cacheted first day cover envelopes themselves.  How much further can they go?  To help answer that question we must know how far they have already gone, and the following extensive survey (now online) would seem in order.

SOSSI Journal, Volume 9, Number 12, December 1960
Created by Keith Larson