How to spot a fake or forged stamp

Wherever stamps carry real money, fakers follow. The good news is that most fakery leaves traces, and a few disciplined checks will catch the great majority of altered and forged stamps before you pay. You don't need a laboratory — you need a loupe, good light, a perforation gauge, a healthy suspicion of "too good to be true," and the discipline to demand a certificate when the money is real.

The two kinds of fakery

• Outright forgeries: an entire stamp produced to imitate a genuine one. Older forgeries can be surprisingly crude under magnification; modern ones can be sophisticated.
• Alterations of genuine stamps: a real but cheap stamp doctored to look like a rare, expensive one — repaired, reperforated, regummed, or given a faked cancel. These are the more common and more dangerous trap, because the base stamp is authentic.

Red flags to check before you pay

Reperforation. A common stamp can be made to look better-centered, or a perf gauge faked, by trimming margins and punching new perforations. Measure the gauge on all four sides, and look for perforation teeth that are too sharp, uneven in spacing, or a different shape from the rest. Genuine perforations are consistent; added ones rarely match perfectly.

Regumming. Fresh gum applied to the back fakes a never-hinged premium. Genuine original gum has a characteristic texture and ages with the paper; regum often looks too even, too shiny, or pools oddly at the perforation tips. Check that the gum doesn't bridge over the perforation teeth in a way fresh application would.

Repairs. Held to raking light and viewed through, a genuine sound stamp is uniform. Repairs show as patches of different paper texture, filled thins, rebuilt corners, or closed tears. Any sudden change in thickness or surface is a warning.

Faked cancels. On stamps where a used copy or a particular postmark is worth more, cancels get forged. A genuine cancel sits naturally in the paper; faked ones can look painted-on, sit on top of the surface, use the wrong style for the period, or be applied to lift a stamp's apparent value rather than reflect real postal use.

Added or altered color and overprints. Where an overprint or a color variety carries a premium, both get faked. Compare style, placement, and ink against known-genuine references, and be skeptical when the rare variety is the only thing standing between a cheap stamp and an expensive one.

A quick inspection routine

• Loupe and raking light: scan front and back for repairs, thins, and inconsistent surface.
• Measure the perforations: confirm the gauge matches the genuine issue and that teeth are consistent.
• Check the gum: texture, sheen, and aging should match the paper, not sit fresh on top.
• Study the cancel: does it sit in the paper, match the period, and make postal sense?
• Compare to a reference: design details, color, and overprint style against a known-good example.

When in doubt, get a certificate

This is the rule that protects real money: for any stamp valuable enough that fakery would pay, get an independent certificate from a recognized expertizing body before you buy or sell. A certificate is the difference between owning a verified stamp and owning a hopeful guess.

PhilLens identifies the likely issue and shows reference ranges — it is not an authentication service and cannot certify that a stamp is genuine. Use it to know what you're looking at, then let an expertizing body confirm that it's real before serious money changes hands.

*Reference figures are estimated market ranges only — not appraisals, expertization, or investment advice. Actual prices depend on condition, demand, and venue.*