Jean de Sperati

Jean de Sperati ( born October 14, 1884 in Pisa, † April 27, 1957 in Aix -les- Bains ) was one of the most famous stamp counterfeiter in the world. His forgeries were so good that even stamps Examiner from his time they attested as genuine. By profession he was a printer and engraver. Imitate the design, paper and printing thanks to its outstanding ability, he was also called " Rubens of Philately".

Life

Childhood and youth

Jean de Sperati was born in Italy in 1884, but spent most of his life in France. Already in his youth in Pisa and later in France, he began stamp collecting. He also was particularly interested in the printing techniques of the time and for the then fledgling photography. Related possessed a view card factory and a paper factory. This gave Jean de Sperati numerous photographic printing technology as well as chemical knowledge. These were the foundations for his future career as a stamp forger.

The first fakes

The first attempts to copy stamps, Jean de Sperati go exceptionally well. These were valuable trademarks of San Marino, which have all been told by stamp experts as genuine. Then Sperati began with numerous other copies of valuable stamps from around the world. It originated more than 500 masterful forgeries from over 100 different output fields.

1942 got the stamp forger for the first time in his life in conflict with the law. A value of Sperati mission to Portugal was intercepted by French customs. It contained several fake German stamps. Jean de Sperati was displayed for the illegal export of capital. However, he maintained his innocence. He told the police that it was merely in the supposedly valuable rarities from Germany to copies, which he himself had made ​​. The police called in the best stamp experts in the country to clarify the facts. These came to the conclusion that it is all stamps handle originals and they were very valuable. The chair of the experts held Edmond Locard of Lyon. Although Jean de Sperati was able to convince the police of the falsity of the rarities, has however been accused of fraud. His trial took place in April 1948.

The process 1948

Jean de Sperati tried the court to declare that he had no fraudulent intent on the sale of postage stamps. He feels as an artist and not as a forger. He also told the court that he had just forgotten to identify the stamps as fakes, but he would do so in the future. In fact, it was such that he had offered the rare stamps to about 1 % of the normal market price and so helped the simple collector to these rarities. Nevertheless, was sentenced Jean de Sperati by the Paris Criminal Court to one year in prison, 10,000 francs fine and to 300,000 francs atonement. The Paris Criminal Court sentenced him not because of imitations, but because of his " fraudulent ".

After the guilty verdict

Jean de Sperati had due to his advanced age - he was already over 64 years old - not in jail. In 1954, he finally sold his remaining counterfeits and all printing blocks to the "British Philatelic Association " for an enormous sum of money. He retired after completely out of this business back and promised never again to forge a postage stamp. He also wanted to prevent anyone in possession derselbigen comes and could imitate him by selling all his forgeries and printing blocks. Three years later, Jean de Sperati died at the age of 73 years.

Work

The stamp of Jean de Sperati forgeries are among the best in the world. Many of them probably lie dormant still undetected in many a collection. Jean de Sperati forged only the most valuable rarities of philately. He did this with an inimitable precision as they ever achieved by no other counterfeiters. Jean de Sperati stayed in counterfeiting the stamps too much on the choice of location of the postmark. So he imitated only postmark larger cities.

A Sperati forgery is not a worthless today. They are regarded by philatelists as a special collector's items and often achieve high prices. Poor quality stamp forgeries, however, are often worthless if they are not wanted for comparison or research purposes.

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