Tiraspol, February, 22. /Novosti Pridnestrovya/. Every year Pridnestrovian Postmark publishing house issues about 80 new series with a total circulation of more than one million copies. Pridnestrovian postmarks are in high demand not only among collectors, but also among swindlers. Fakes of our stamps flooded online auctions.
One of the ways to struggle with light-fingered people is creation of a catalog, and they're working on it at the moment. The stamp catalog of Pridnestrovie for all the years is now printed in a draft form. A list of all series and copies will soon be compiled in one edition. Postage stamps website should appear along with it.
“There are fakes that are made to the detriment of philatelists, therefore, to the detriment of the state image. Such stamps are called “fantastic”. They do not copy any original stamp. It’s just a made-up postmark” - Vsevolod Lavrentiev, director of the Pridnestrovian Postmark publishing house said.
In online stores, the price for such stamps varies from one dollar to one hundred. For example, stamps for the football World Cup can be ordered for $9, but this is an obvious fake. Although, the seller has many purchases and a high rating on the website. Pridnestrovian Postmark really did issued a series for the Mundial, but it looked quite different.
“For example, on the fake stamps dedicated to the battle of Smolensk, there are both Soviet military leaders and fascist ones. That is, clearly we would never print that kind of stamps. There are such fake postmarks on the well-known Russian auction. The seller is from Kiev” - Vsevolod Lavrentiev explained.
Ukraine and Lithuania are the leaders in the number of counterfeit Pridnestrovian stamps. In order to keep the business profitable, you have to sacrifice quality. A fake copy is different in size and manufacture method. In the original, silver paint is used for offset printing. The First Pridnestrovian channel reports that an ordinary laser printer cannot work with it.
Even the very first postage stamps of Pridnestrovie were being forged. It was back in 1993. And it was much easier to do this back then because of the poor quality of the original print.
