MACHIN FORGERIES

When stamps were only made available via post offices there was little scope for a forger to market his forgeries. However, in the late 1980's the Post Office began to encourage normal retail outlets to stock stamps. A small local shop would be only to keen to buy stamps at a discounted rate for reselling thus the forger could now find an outlet for his work.

3 forgeries on piece, cancelled London E18, 21 Oct 1993
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The first reported forgery was of the 24p first class stamp in 1993. Whilst the colour and indded the clarity of the design was quite good it was let down by the somewhat crude perforation, which is perf 11 instead of the normal 15x14. The paper is was also of a very poor quality. The stamps themselves were printed as sheets and postally used examples are known dated as early as July 1993, generally with London cancellations.

Little over a year later, forgers were at it again. This time they were forging the 2nd class NVI in booklet panes of 10. However the majority seem to have come from philatelic sources and may never have been intende for public consumption.

References:
"The Forged 24p Machin", Gibbons Stamp Monthly, May 1994
"Machin NVI Forgery Discovered", Gibbons Stamp Monthly, February 1995