STAMPS FOUND TO BE PHONY

By OSCAR SHAGNASTY
Independent Philately News

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- The new stamp that pays tribute
to the Smithsonian Insitution is a phony, a U.S. Postal Service
official has revealed.

"Phony as a three-dollar bill," said Clayman Doubty.

The attention-grabbing Smithsonian stamp was found to be
a fraud after an investigation revealed it did not have a designation
of cents, nor glue on the back.

"So It didn't make sense," said Doubty, with a chuckle at his
double entendre..

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PHONY STAMPS (Illegal to use to mail a letter.)

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The Smithsonian stamp, claimed to be printed in tribute to the
Institution's search for truth concerning man's intelligent design
instead of evolution, is the second stamp declared a phony
over the past few days.

The attention-grabbing "Inverted Jenny" stamp found last month on the
envelope of a Broward County, Fla., absentee ballot was declared a
fake on Monday.

But the stamp still may be preserved. The curator for the Smithsonian
National Postal Museum in Washington has said he is interested in the
stamp, even if it is a fake, because it's now a piece of history that
also generated new interest in stamp collecting.

"We always sort of assumed overwhelmingly the odds were against it
being genuine, but it has done several positive things," said the
curator of philately, Wilson Hulme.

Two independent stamp organizations examined the Inverted Jenny in
person on Monday.

"We always sort of assumed overwhelmingly the odds were against it
being genuine, but it has done several positive things," said the
curator of philately, Wilson Hulme.

Representatives from both the Pennsylvania-based American Philatelic
Society and the California-based Professional Stamp Experts agreed the
Broward stamp was a copy of the Inverted Jenny, famous for its blue
upside-down biplane.

The forged stamp has several differences from a real Inverted Jenny.
Mercer Bristow, director of expertizing with APS, measured how many
perforations per two centimeters the stamp had. A true Inverted Jenny
has 11. This one had 10, Bristow said.

The original Jenny stamps were printed in an engraving process. The
one on the ballot was not engraved but probably a lithograph, he said.

"Now that we see it, it's almost obvious," Bristow said.

Then Randy Shoemaker, senior expert with PSE, looked at the stamp. The
first giveaway, he said, was that the Jenny was taped on, as if it had
no glue.

"I think it was a philatelic prank," Shoemaker said.

APS will issue a certificate that should follow the stamp, letting any
future owner know it is a fake, APS Executive Director Peter
Mastrangelo said.

The stamp was similar to one known forgery the APS has on record from
about 10 years ago, Bristow said. Where that forgery came from is
unknown.

Using a fake stamp is considered revenue fraud, said Debbie Fetterly,
spokeswoman for the U.S. Postal Service in South Florida.

But the case has been reviewed and ruled an isolated incident. It also
lacks enough evidence for prosecution, postal inspector Blad Rojo
said.

County Commissioner John Rodstrom discovered the stamp last month
after the Nov. 7 election while reviewing absentee ballots collected
at a Fort Lauderdale warehouse.

Days later, the stamp drew attention from across the country and
overseas.

Stamp experts said they thought the stamp was a fake based on pictures
taken of the stamp last month. But Monday was the first time experts
were able to see it in person.

The Jenny stamps were printed in 1918. But a printing error left
several sheets of the stamp with an upside down Curtiss Jenny biplane.

Somehow, one sheet of 100 Jenny stamps got through postal inspectors.

The last real Inverted Jenny was found in 1994, Bristow said. Five of
the 100 are still missing.

If it had been the real deal, the Broward stamp would have been worth
about $300,000, depending on its condition.

Now the stamp will go back into storage, as do the rest of Broward's
absentee ballots.

Supervisor of Elections Brenda Snipes said the envelope, which had no
return address, must be kept for 22 months along with all the other
absentee ballots. Afterward, all of the materials can be destroyed.

Snipes said she was leaning toward donating it to the Smithsonian. "We
want to do what is best," Snipes said.

As for the other old stamps on the envelope, they looked real, APS's
Bristow said, but probably not worth much more than their face values.