Leeds Philatelic Society Reference Collection


Introduction



At the 36th meeting of the Society on Saturday 17 December 1892, the President (Mr W Beckwith) presented to the Society his Album of Forgeries and Bogus Stamps (Ref. 1). Over the years members have added considerably to this "black book" (Ref. 2). In those far off days before comprehensive catalogues with reasonable illustrations appeared, it served members as a reference as to the genuineness or otherwise of their stamps.
The collection grew and sometime after World War II the process commenced to mount and write-up the material onto album pages. These pages now span most of the stamp issuing countries of the world, from Antigua to Zululand, with over 175 territories being represented. Material is still being donated and there remain items still in the original "black book" to be dealt with (Ref. 3).
One inter-nationally known member of the Leeds Society who donated to this collection, was John K Sidebottom (of Overland Mail fame) who gave 15 forgeries in 1932 and 169 (including blocks) in 1940. But before then, in 1921, the Revd RB Earee who wrote one of the earliest books on forgeries, Album Weeds, or How to Detect Forged Stamps (first published by Stanley Gibbons in 1882) donated 633 forgeries. In more recent times, Peter Ibbotson gave 2 forgeries in 1971.
About 20 years ago through the good offices of Susan Oliver, the album was shown to Robbie Lowe who spent time looking at some of the more difficult stamps and marking in pencil on the page "bad", or on the rare occasion "good"!
This reference collection is full of information and stories and to keep some of these intact, the "black book" will be retained along with some of the original pages.


Captions for illustrations

Ref. 1 Original inside page of the Black Book

Ref. 2 First few line of the List of Donors

Ref. 3 Page 114, Liberia 1860 issue, which is still in the old album


As curator and custodian of this valuable source of information, a major part of my task is to make this worldwide collection available to members.