Many new U.S. counterfeit booklet panes turn up

Philatelic Foreword by Jay Bigalke

The counterfeiting of United States stamps has been a noticeable problem for the stamp collecting community for the last two decades.

Beginning around 2002, booklets of a 37¢ Flag stamp started showing up in large quantities. Many were sold in decks of 100 booklets at a huge discount.

From around 2006 through 2016, most of the counterfeits being sold were coil rolls of 100 Flag designs. But that changed in 2016 when pane stamps started being counterfeited followed by booklets.

Fast forward to Black Friday weekend after Thanksgiving last year. Advertisements with keywords targeted toward stamp collectors offered huge discounts on recently issued forever stamps. In this case, it was $39.90 for $58 in face value.

Linn’s has received multiple reports from collectors who unfortunately placed orders for these stamps. They said that the counterfeit booklets received were well executed.

And, they received many different designs. So many that I can’t even list them all in this column. Among the counterfeits we have seen in person are double-sided booklet panes of 20 of the 2021 Espresso Drinks and Garden Beauty stamps, the 2020 Winter Scenes and Earth Day issues, the 2019 Christmas Wreaths and Cactus Flowers, the 2018 Sparkling Holidays, and more.

We have also seen counterfeit panes of the 2019 Sesame Street and the 2018 Hot Wheels and Scooby-Doo stamps.

And based on some of the websites we have seen that offer these stamps, other counterfeits are likely to turn up. Collectors should remain vigilant in purchasing only through the U.S. Postal Service and other trusted stamp dealer sources.

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