eBay has allowed fake stamps to be sold as long as they are marked on the back indelibly with COPY or FAKE or FORGERY. The problem is, how many replicas are made but not marked so as to deceptively take advantage of unwary buyers?
What particularly raised my eyebrow was having searched for "Airmail" stamps on ebay. It is at times easy to find bargains on nice stamps in the airmail category. What I wasn't expecting was to see pages of Graf Zepplin airmail stamps, many of them mint a few used. Dozens of them in the same denominations. These are highly sought after rare airmail stamps, selling for many hundreds and even into the thousands.
Yes it is possible a big collector decided to cash in. But what is more disturbing is, there are so many high quality reproductions of these stamps that I am concerned the average person might not know a real one from a fake one if they are disingenuously sold as authentic.
PLEASE make sure you CLOSELY examine ANY rare stamp that you buy off of eBay. Do your best to get it authenticated. See a stamp dealer. Consult the scott catalog. If it should turn out to be a reproduction and you find out soon enough you can open a claim and get your money back from PayPal.
And again I must stress beware of anything coming out of Asia. They are masters at counterfeiting anything. Everything from Rolex's to Tiffany jewelry, to coins and of course stamps are going to be on their list. You can't be too careful, and if you see an oversupply of something that is generally hard to find, you should be very suspicious as I was.
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