by Lee Coen
18th of October 2017

I see thousands of these on EBAY.

Not really thousands but there are so many it drives me crazy. A fake is a fake! And EBAY allows you to sell a fake, provided you have the word, ‘fake’, ‘forgery’ or ‘reference item’. Heck I’ve even used a few of those to get rid of my junk stamps.

Lets look at Scott# 52, 51 and 50 Iran Stamps.

These are my three valid Iran stamps.Scott# 52, 51, and 50. I placed them in reverse order because you see more of the 25c, Scott# 52 than the others for sale quite often.

September 1881, Recessed Mitra Issue. Reference page 34, ICPR book, M. Sadri.

Page 34 of The Iran Classic Philatelic Reference

The number seen here are not the Scott numbers, they are the ‘Persi’ catalogue numbers.

Ok so where’s the Forgeries?

Both of theses are Fake Scott# 50, 5c.Ebay photos, for sale

Scott# 51, Ebay photo-

Notice the differences between these two stamps.
Color, design etc

Scott #52, Ebay photo Fake for sale.

Ok, so how do you tell?

The colors below the main value have to be different. If the Right inner frame line is solid, as shown above, fake.
This works for the 5,10 and 25c stamp. Don’t let the example make you wonder. ‘But what about the red one and the green one’?-Same same-

So what, these aren’t valuable stamps right? Let’s look at the one I bought on a web site for $18.00. Knowing it was real, and the perf was 13x12 I’m sitting on a $150.00 stamp. See above for Persi cat value.

By the way, I bought two from the same seller..=$300.00. I say I did pretty well.

Again Thanks to M. Sadri and his book, where all the knowledge comes from. WWW.PERSI.COM has the reference guide for sale if interested.

Happy collecting and don’t run from Iran stamps, give them a shot, I have.

Lee