JEAN DE SPERATI: MASTER FORGER

The name "Jean de Sperati" is one

of the most famous and infamous in
the history oI philately. Few legitimare
philatelists have gained such notoriety
as this master forger. But even his
name, like his famous creations, was a
forgery, at least partially so.
Sperati was born Giovanni Sperati
in Pistoia, Italy in 1884. His father was
a retired army officer who wenl into
business. The collapse of this venture
threw the family into poverty. One of
his brothers joined the army, the sec-
ond took up photography and the
third became a stamp dealer. The
young Giovanni learned stamps from
his brother Mariano as well as about
chemistry from the experiments his
brother Massimo conducted in photo-
graphic and developing tech n iques.
Their mother had taken up printing
and forgery. and the major formative
influences on his future were almost
complete. To make matters even more
Jean de Sperati relaxing in his study. convenient for his future profession of
postage stamp forger, his cousins owned
a nearby paper mill. His interest in his studies in Accounting at the Institute Technique de Bologna waned
as his fascination with chemistry and printing techniques increased.

As young man Giovanni Sperati started collecting postage stamps. With his family now financially
a
struggling, filling the blank spaces in his album became more and more difficult. The lad determined to
save up his ft7e in order to purchase a better item, and finally obtained a valuable French Colonial stamp
which became the pride ofhis collection. Unfortunately, some time later he discovered that his "rare item"
was actually a forgery and a crude one at that.
This is the incident that Sperati claimed would galvanize his energies and eventually lead to his
vocation of stamp forger. The desire for revenge on stamp dealers became first a vendetta and then an
obsession. The young Sperati dreamt of"gettingeven with the dealers." He vowed that he would someday
create his own "philatelic works ofart" that would deceive and make fools ofevery dealer and expert in
Europe.
As Giovanni grew out ofhis teens, his interest in stamps seemed to infect the whole family. In the April
8th, 1909 issue of the Berliner Briefmarken-Zeitung, a lengthy article appeared about a family of forgers
operating out of ltaly. The head of this ring was identified as as Mariano Sperati (the stamp dealer), age
27 Also identified were Madame Sperati as well as Massimo (the former photographer), aged 31, and the
future master forger, Giovanni Sperati, aged 24. The article exposed the modus operandl of this "family
business." Mariano sent out letters like the following to known stamp collectors:
Dear Sir,

I hear thol you are a stomp (ollector and I have a proposition to make to you. I intend selling my t ollection . . .
and if you wish I can send to you on approval a collettion o[ rare stamps at an enormous discount from the
.alalogue ptirc.

tt
The infamous approval card that defied the experts. The 18 stamps, if genuine, would have a scott
catalogue value well in excess of $50,000.

If the collector responded with interest, an approval selection of choice rare stamps at 357a of the
current Yvert & Telliei Catalogue followed. Occasiionally, a collector found one or more items a little
suspicious. The unabashed Miriano would respond to such charges with an indiSnant letter:
youf expett is not quite tight about the 80c T scany. I can guaranlee its genuineness. . . . Ihe 80c Tuscany
exisrsin ratious shades which ate printed from dilferent plates,

Not only the stamps, but even the approval sheets themselves were forgeries the stamps were
mounted ori what appeared to be the officiil approval sheets of"Le Timbre,"a stamp Society centered in
Liege.
The original expos? ofthe Sperati operation considered only one group of stamps to be of extreme
danger to t"he advanced collector a gioup of imitations of the stamps of San. Marino..These stamps
*"riitt. n.rt -
work ofthe youngeit member ofthe forgery ring, Giovanni(i.e. Jean de Sperati). As
""trral
the Carabinieiclosed in on the operaiion, the family fled and dispersed. Authorities made
no arrests, but
;h;y ;;r"a printing presses, che-icals and inks, large sheets of paper and hundreds of printing dies.

The young Giovanni sought refuge in Paris, changed his name to Jean, married in l9l4 and worked as
a laborei at virious factoriesin differint parts of France. At night he continued his study ofchemistry
and
printing while pursuing his new "hobby"- the production ofwhat he termed "philatelic works of art."By
il:O tnIs..troUUy,'waslroducing enough incorne for him to become a full-time professional stamp forger.
He had a most originat way offilling want lists, producing choice examples of any stamp requested. He
sold large numberi of stamps to maiy dealers in-Europe and started another personal stamp collection,
which hi called the"livre d;or" (Gold Book). These were his own forgeries that were guaranteed genuine
by dealers or experts. Some stamps in his famous album contained as many-as six different signatures or
guarantees of authenticity. The [ivre dbr would eventually contain 125 different expertized stamps -
quite an impressive collection indeed!
The most interesting thing about Sperati is perhaps the care with which he took towards his forgery.
He loved his work and ipproictred it with adedlcation that few philatelists will ever be able to match.
He
uiually worked 16 houis'a day, 7 days a week. His knowledge of paper, chemistry and photography

22
 helped him to avoid the mistakes of earlier philatelic forgers. Some of his techniques were so advanced
that even the experts who knew a stamp to be fake were baffled. As he became the ienter ofinternational
publicity in the 1940's, he became an almost mythical figure with reputed superhuman abilities that
seemed almosl imcomprehensible. For example, even into the early 1950's, experts believed that he had
somehow devised a way to produce fake watermarks undistinguishable from thi real ones. We now know
that Sperati faked no watermarks instead he always started with a genuine watermarked stamp when
he wished to "imitate" a stamp with a watermark.

In.l942 Sperati sent an approval selection to a dealer in Lisbon. Custom agents opened the package
and discovering what appeared to be valuable rare postage stamps, Sperati was chargid and brought t-o
trial for violation ofa law forbidding export ofsubstantial sums oi capital from Franci. It was at thii time
that Sperati would reach the height of his notoriety and also get his greatest revenge on the stamp dealers
and philatelic authorities of his age.
The court turned the stamps over to the local Philatelic Society for an estimation oftheir worth, and
they were assessed to be worth between 60,500 and 78,000 francs. Sperati appealed these findings as
inaccurate, claiming that the items were not stamps but "artistic works." In 1943 the court of Afpeal
submitted the stamps to a recognized authority, Dr. Edmond Locard, for expertization. He meticulbusly
studied each stamp and submitted an official report to the Court which included a complete inventory oi
the stamps, along with catalogue number, catalogue value and actual retail value. fhe current Yvert
catalogue.value ofthe l8 stamps was 274,500 francs. However, Dr. Locard felt that the stamps had an
actualretailvalueof303,200francsbecause"aclassicstampinfirst-classcondition[is]rareand...worth
considerably more than catalogue value." His report to the Court scoffed at Speiati's claim that the
stamps were "artistic copies" and he closed with the insistence that:

" lyith allcenainty and evidence, allstamps

mentioned above are NOT imitations.

(signed) Edmond Locard

Lyons, 4th January, 1944."

Perhaps even Sperati himself was astounded

with these developments as he found himself in a
Court of Law insisting that his stamps were not
real and trying to prove that they were forgeries.
Sperati kept appealing the convictions with the
assertion that he did not sell real stamps, and the
A*a$yw*tena litigation dragged on for a decade. At one of the
trials he produced three identical sets of the
5*'&5 ewerts ! supposed rare stamps from the approval card.
Finally, the famous French philatelist M. Leon
fr$arcfui\rub$t Dubus, heading a Court-appointed Expert Com-
mittee declared that:
tr $ilbgrwltr*
lhese stamps are all leproductions ofvalu-
able stahps and thol these rcpto ductions are
such as would deceive even an adyanced collec-
tor who hasnot availablethe matetial rfieans to
compare such pietes and, if he has not a pro-
found knowledge and the necessary tests for
the exahination, then he may believe these
imitetions to bc genuue ltamps.

Since neither the creation of tiny works of art

nor the artistic imitation of postage stamps was
against the law, Sperati was convicted of a very
minor charge and given a token fine. The interna-
tional fame caused by the much-publicized trial
The title page of the first edition of Sperati's meant that business was better than ever. His
"Philately Without Experts." work became so famous that he was swamped
with orders for reprints of his forgeries. By the
23
early l95Q's, with failing eyesight, his new output slowed even further. ln 1952-53, he was contacted by
representatives of the British Philatelic Association who offered to buy outright all his stamps, dies and
records. The B.P.A. had first become aware of Sperati's work in 1932, but did not publish their findings
due to fears of causing a crisis in the philatelic world. They now bought Sperati's entire stock and
collection in 1954 for a large sum. They mounted an exhibit ofhis forgeries and published a detailed series
of catalogues and books detailing the forgeries. In his last years Sperati made his "artistic philatelic
works" only to please himself. At the time of his death in 1957 he was producing a new counterfeit of the
Basel Dove of Switzerland.

Sperati wrote two philatelic works, la Philatelie sans experls and La Technique complete de la
" Phitatelie d'Art", parts of which have been translated and published by the B.PA' His autobiography
("Mon Autobiographie Technique') was also translated and published by the B.PA.

BiblioErphy
British Philatelic Association, Tfte Wo* of Jean de Sperarr', London: British Philatelic Association, 1955. 2nd rev. ed. 1956. 2
vols.

Tyler, Varro E. Philarelic Foryets: Their Lives and lJ/orks. Lotdor,:. Robson Lowe, 1976.

Special Anniversary Event

Philately h la Francaise
A Seminar Co-Sponsored by
The Philatelic Foundation
rnd
France and Colonies Philatelic Society

@
Seminar Faculty
Robert G. Stone, Seminar Moderator
Friday, March 16, 6:00 PM John E. Lievsay,
William H. Miller, Jr. Conference Room "Identification and Expertization."
Marc Martin,
The Philatelic Foundation
"The Printing ofthe Classic Issues of France."
2l East 40th Street, l4th Floor
Dr. Martin F. Stempien, Jr.
New York City "Aspects of French Postal History."
Dr. Edward J. Grabowski,
"French Colonial PhilatelY."

FREE to PF contributors or members of FcPs $35 for others. For Pre-registration call: (212) 889-6483
-

24
 "The Sperati Forgeries"

by Peter A. Robertson

fEditor's Note: One of the most exciting albums in The Philatelic Foundation's 250volume Reference
Collection is the blue Elbe binder that houses the PF's collection oJ Speratiforgeries. Next to the British
Philatelic Association, who bought out Sperati's entire stock in the 1950's, The Philatelic Foundation
holds one of the larger reference collections ofthe Speratiforgeries in existence. Of the 566 dilferent ilems
he is known to have produced, the Foundation's Reference Collection contains at least one copy of most
of them. The Philatelic Foundation\ Reference Library also contains all available informationfrom the
B. PA. on the Speratiforgeries. Some of the Speratiforgeries exist in only one or two copies- For others,
as many as 500 may exist. His total output of copies in his almost five decades of activity is eslimated al
between 50,000 and 70,000 items. Philatelic Foundation Curator Peter Robertson opens the doors ofthe
PFb vault for a look " Iwide the Reference Collection.']

One of the most fascinating aspects of the Sperati forgeries is that he imitated not only great rarities
but what were in his dayvery inexpensive stamps. That also made him more dangerous than most forgers.
He truly had some sort ofgenuine love for what he was doing and considered himself an artist. He made a
living by his forgeries but he spent more care on his individual "philatelic imitations" than probably any
other forger before or since. In his younger days, he was cheated by some stamp dealers, and he spent the
rest ofhis life getting his revenge on dealers. Certainly we are talking about an obsessive personality here,
but he really looked upon himself not as a faker but as an artist. In fact, when he was finally caught and
prosecuted he successfully defended himself by claiming his fakeries were actually works of art which he
signed. This may or may not be true as any number of his works exist today in an unsigned state. He
continued to insist that his signature was erased by dishonest individuals. This is a matter of speculation
but, Iuckily, due to the printing methods he employed, certain constant flaws exist in his designs aiding
specialists in identifying his counterfeits. This was handsomely covered by the monumental two volume
work produced by The British Philatelic Association (now Federation).
The most dangerous thing about Sperati was his revolutionary technique in approaching forgery.
Before him, most forgers tried to completelyforge a stamp startingfrom scratch. Thus, they had not only
the design to deal with, but also paper, watermark, perforations, gum or cancellation. Sperati greatly
simplified the process by usually beginning with something genuine. For a long time, his British area
counterfeits were very dangerous because the watermarks and paper seemed so real. That's because they
were real. He would take a real stamp, a more common value in a set, and bleach out or chemically
remove the design. He then would print his stamp on the bleached-out paper. Thus he had a genuine
watermark, genuine paper and perforations, and sometimes a genuine cancellation or overprint as these
often were in black and would remain after the harsh bleaching agents did their work. These items
astounded people for agood many years because they thought he was producing forged watermarks and
paper which was so good, it could not be told fromthe real thing. He was insidious in that he went against
logical approaches to stamp expertization. If he were creating an inverted center error, he would bleach
out the frame, rather than the central design. For anyone examining this type of stamp, the natural
tendency is to closely scan the inverted center area rather than the outer frame area. Most other
counterfeiters add a counterfeit or substituted design to the center but Sperati did it backwards, and very
effectively, I might add.
 One quickly learns to respect the work of a forger like Sperati. Some of his forgeries were "guaran-
teed' by a half dozen different experts or dealers. But when he started his work he was much more
dangerous than he is today. We must remember that at the turn of the century most collectors were still
general collectors. There were very few specialists around. The early catalogue illustrations were not
always that accurate, and there were no great Reference Collections or Philatelic Libraries available to
most collectors. They had to rely on collector friends or the dealers from whom they got their stamps.
Dealers would certify stamps by initiding or signing them. As any collector is aware, some dealers are
very knowledgeable, some not so. As a matter of fact, these were some of the major reasons behind the
establishment ofThe Philatelic Foundation in 1945.

The technology of Expertization was also virtually nonexistent some 80 years ago. Aviation was in its
infancy and television had yet to be dreamed of. Even radio was a thing ofthe future. The tools available
to a stamp expert were the magnifying glass, the human eye, examples for comparison, and a broad
general knowledge. Good philatelic literature would only be developed by the trial and error methods of
these old-time professionals and the passage of time.
Today, the expertizer has it far easier. He has access to poaper micrometers enabling the measurement
ofpaper thickness. The ultraviolet lamp enables today's expertizer to examine stamps under a part of the
Iight spectrum not available to the naked eye. This is very helpful in detecting removed stains and
cancellations, and in finding repairs and drawn-in portions of the design or cancellation. Gsts can be
performed to determine the elemental components of inks and more sophisticated comparison micro-
scopes allow minute detailed examination and comparison against known genuine or faked examples.
Much literature now exists which either points out known counterfeits or presents in{epth plate studies
which highlight the tiny design differences between stamps printed together from the same plate, allowing
the examiners to "plate" a stamp being examined.
Sperati had his own peculiar preferences. He was very knowledgeable about stamps and studied them
carefully. When he created a copy of a stamp, he would often forge several different plate positions. He
had his own reference collection, and added to it by picking up damaged copies at low prices. Like most
collectors of his time, he preferred used stamps to mint, and he was actually rather poor at producing fake
gum. For a used stamp, he often started with a used stamp on the right type of paper and chemically
removed the ink of the stamp without removing the cancel. When one sees a genuine cancel, he is less
likely to suspect the stamp. He didn't care much about perforations, and most of the stamps he
reproduced were classic imperforates.
No knowledgeable collector need be afraid of such forgeries today. For some stamps the Sperati
forgeries are actually worth more than the original stamps. Sperati forged only a handful of U.S. stamps,
and the experienced specialist should be able to tell the real from the fake. Furthermore, since major
philatelic institutions like The Philatelic Foundation now exist, expertization is much quicker and more
convenient than it ever has been. Needless to say, the safest course is to buy from knowledgeable and
reputable dealers and to insist that any better or high priced item has a Certificate ofcenuineness from an
internationally recognized institution like The Philatelic Foundation's Expert Committee.
''j,kf

Sperati's U.S. and Area forgeries.

27
Sperati forgery of New York Postmaster Provisional (Scott #9XI). Note that the serifs of the "T" in
'POST" are detached from the upright; also, notice the large white spot between the "N" and "T" of
.CENTS."
Sperati's forgery of U.S. lOc 1847 (Scott #2). The original stamp is engraved, whereas Sperati used a
contact photolithographic process. Also, note the small curved line outside the left frame level with the
top of the left "X."

29
 BR i'f r 5H L.I.tplt-ii
GrtsAT 8,*.I-tAltl AOgrxAl.rF . APT
Atsr "lr]l'i! laur,.1

"ql',,
;

ffi
s;r
(YPRLlg q*L-qe!{
X
la
{9111:aE-

ffi ffi
Lc!!9!,q4!!t

W ffi
sq 2O 2\ 2r
!-AqD3 r( ALfl MAttttl:l119

ffi ffi ru
B!{*i4l!f

ffi ffi
C.l-t!-' . 'r!9:l'

H
I95,1 Jttftt'?

Some ofSperatih British Commonwealth forgeries. All watermarks and paper are genuine this baffled
the experts for many years.
-

30
 I-;.,t, :.

ffimffi
ffi
'ffi "ffi
L

"ffi
ffi ffi
ffi g }!o 3411
'ffiffi qa- r3lr
t'!

'sl:r,;

x
qb
ffi
A,6 it. i ! Ft

Sperati French forgeries; including rare tete-beche varieties.

3t
 fjP,l\,r,-i,

ffi ffiffi
,,1

-*#
ffiffi^m
l.i

sffin
&{"-

ffiffi hffiT
wl+ffifl tr3 l,hf, . l.i,lq

ffi ffiffiffi
It,! ll i,,'- ,. . t,t | .',

More Sperati French forgeries, including back-of-the-book material.

)z
 Gg&aa[i]]t:!!
BAbr'N

BAVAR]A

"m
lffil
l@lI@l
I

8R{MEr.l
ffi
_
Arso aohcall€cl __ l!.IFi. ei.r.,

re
I Allo
19
'
t. r",
8RfnrE r"
3.flr."i,
b|ac( iec&l{glg ior.<a' a i€,{'! ,i'
9. s'6

B.RUNtWTCT

'-*...dr

l,)?,,: l'' .'

Sperati German States forgeries, including the very rare Bavaria # lb, tete-beche pair.

33
 Ciri:nAr glFr { a

oLofl'lBuRa

lll Allo i+
"tLDEtrBui(l
q-8 !-q"
q.t!rr

^m'm
SAtr rr1'

'm

dT ltt Nrr$/l)
'Hfl!9trDx!

A|R.a. il(1,(, l.r i ,!, a

Sperati German States forgeries.

34
 Q sr.l',r: ;l rr: gs

!.iANNO'4R

n . Al<,a" (Mt €N" l8o. filto billt

stra.v,,l i,,L
- r;E Btt -
3 " t7 -ta-
LU6EEK

3or -7'r1t. t

Mfc(rE{euR6 sctwralN

'r^r
alesllel8E

^ffi'M
,2. Arso Lh{
"- neu{Gl
- q-1"

More Sperati Cerman States forgeries.

35
 !.w r 1..1:r: r, ,.
i. t_ l. i- t /- i,

'm'm
W tl( iiriure l.rr!i- i',i.irr.i-

6 .&r.rr A fit .ii:

No FI(AML RtuNt) C!-.n!

E ? , lbr.6

WlrH Finr're Rou*r, gqql;

^m'mi
'ffi^;m^mi 'ffi
| ,b". 4 t3 ?tj,.t

Sperati Switzerland forgeries.

36