EFOCC Resources

EFOS for Sale

APS Affiliate #103

ATA Chapter #94

Interesting EFO Related Sites (Non-Commercial)

Errors, freaks, and oddities (Wikipedia)

Philatelic fakes and forgeries (Wikipedia)

List of stamp forgers (Wikipedia)

Specimen stamp (Wikipedia)

Postage stamp separation (Wikipedia)

The Philatelic Foundation: Fakes and Forgeries
In addition to this page on fakes and forgeries, the site also provides an excellent database that displays the certificates issued by its expertizing service.

Stamp Forgery Guide
Excellent resource for information on forgeries, with a large bibliography, including a free, downloadable World Forgery Catalogue by G. Kock, information about particular forgers, many images, etc. Highly recommended to those interested in forgeries.

Alterations, Fakes and Forgeries
Another excellent resource for information on forgeries with many pictures of alterations, fakes and forgeries.

Philatelic bibliography on fakes, counterfeits & bogus, compiled by Leonard H. Hartmann of Philatelic Bibliopole
Leonard H. Hartmann, who operates Philatelic Bibliopole, a philatelic book dealer, has compiled an incredible bibliography of books on the subject.

Stamp-Collecting-World: Stamp Forgeries

Philatelic Essays
Excellent pictures and notes, an annotated census of rare grill patent essays, Loewenberg Rarities, more. Great site for the essay aficionados.

The Truth about the Stamps of the Somali Coast with Inverted Centers
Often dealer sites have useful information above and beyond the goal of selling stamps, intended to give collectors a reason to visit the site. This is such an article about these "manufactured errors" with excellent background information, on the site of Apfelbaum Inc. Unfortunately, the article does not contain any pictures. However, these stamps were also mentioned in The EFO Collector, in an article by longtime contributor, Joseph Monteiro, titled The First Invert From a Few Selected Countries - Part 6. You can see the pictures in the April 2015 issue of The EFO Collector. If you are an EFOCC member, you should be able to see that right now, on this site, by using the Member Login feature...

Crazy Errors in Philately
Neatly categorized by error type, this site has also a great presentation and pictures. Its creator, Emmanuel Delperdange, has clearly a lot of fun collecting and presenting this material, as the home page starts with "My Favourites" and goes on to say "Then just watch, you will not believe your eyes!"

The site has several sections, such as "My favourites", "Design errors", Production errors", "Handling errors", "Twin stamps" as well as pages that categorize items by country. My favorite, by far, is the "Design Errors" section, which is also the most extensive. That anybody could notice some of the items listed is amazing. You find people with too many fingers, too few toes, camels and benches with missing legs, bike riders without a bike, shadows in the wrong direction relative to the sun, an Egyptian stamp showing the Panama Canal instead of the Suez canal, dice that have five dots on multiple sides, Rubik cubes with unequal sides, you name it. Erroneous spellings of names, wrong dates, wrong identifications of people are just the most obvious ones... Hidden messages are harder to find (because they are hidden... duh...).

Emmanuel Delperdange also had a previous site that is still reachable, but some of the pages automatically transfer you to the new site. I have not checked if all items on the old site are also on the new one. I like the presentation of the old one, as well...

Revenue Collector focuses on revenue stamps and has interesting pages focusing on errors, freaks and oddities, as well as counterfeits, fakes and forgeries. Finally, it also has a section on varieties. We like this site very much for its clear explanations and excellent large pictures. (Added: December 28, 2012)

Joann Lenz's website on modern postal history
Fascinating website created by Joann Lenz focusing things "she finds interesting," including articles on modern postal history, the Mount Rushmore issue on "Lenz" paper, her exhibit on E-Com, articles on the National One Cent Letter Postage Association, postal counterfeits and much more. (Green denotes EFO related material).

Specimen Stamps

The British Commonwealth UPU Specimen Stamps page, maintained by Robert Buxton, is very extensive and an excellent resource.

There is also a useful Wikipedia page: Page on Specimens.

Canadian Errors, Re-Entries & Constant Plate Varieties

Canadian Errors and Their Causes
Great exhibit on the subject.

Canadian EFOs
Display of Canadian EFOs with nice pictures on a bulletin board.

www.re-entries.com
Maintained by EFOCC Member Ralph E. Trimble, this site is contains extensive information about and listings of re-entry varieties. Wondering what a re-entry is? Go to the site and find out. Incidentally, this site has some of the best stamp pictures and close-ups.

Canadian Tagging Errors
This is an excellent online catalogue of all known Canadian Tagging Errors, maintained by Del Peters. It is based on a legendary collection on the subject, first assembled by Ken Rose (who also wrote "Canadian Tagged Errors", a reference still used on the subject), then sold to "G. D. Mass" and then to Del Peters.

In addition to the listing of errors, this site contains a lot of information that will be helpful to the EFO collector, such as information on tag types and terminology. It is part of a site on Canadian philately, which is very interesting in and by itself.

FlySpecker.com
Good site about Canadian Constant Plate Parieties (CPV). It has also a good intro to Constant Plate Varieties 101 and description of the Intaglio Printing Process.

Small Queen CPV Project
Site about Canadian Constant Plate Varieties (CPV) specific to Canadian Small Queen's. It feels like it has not been updated in a million years, but could be useful to the Canadian Small Queen specialist.

If you would like to recommend an addition to this page or have any other comment, please e-mail the Webmaster.

John M. Hotchner

Errors, Freaks & Oddities

The Columns
from Linn's

Computer-Vended Postage

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