Fournier forgeries

François Fournier (1846–1917) operated as a forger in Geneva from 1904 onwards. According to Varro Tyler’s Philatelic Forgers, Their Lives and Works, Fournier, unlike many of his contemporary forgers, did not seek to defraud the public. He described his material as facsimiles and promoted it to collectors who could not afford to purchase genuine items and to uneducated collectors as a preventive measure against being their being deceived by dishonest stamp dealers.

Following Fournier's death, his former employee, Charles Hirschburger, continued the business until his own death in 1927. Subsequently, in order to prevent the stock from falling into unscrupulous hands, l’Union Philatélique de Genève purchased the entire lot, some 400 kilograms in weight, from Hirschburger’s widow.

After printing the word ‘FAUX’ on the front or the word ‘FAC-SIMILÉ’ on the back of the forgeries, representative selections were mounted on album pages by students from the Geneva School of Arts and Crafts. These pages were housed in 480 special loose-leaf albums which were sold in 1928 to interested individuals and organisations. The balance of the stock was burned. Over the years many of these albums have been broken up to satisfy the demands of collectors of individual countries.

In some instances a few more pages with forgeries mounted on them were produced than were needed to make up the original albums. These came to light in 2005 in the estate of Monsieur E. Friederich, the former President of l’Union Philatélique de Genève and former President of the Fédération International de Philatélie, and I was able to buy them in their entirety.

Since then I have bought some incomplete albums and many loose pages. This has enabled me to supply all the pages missing in the albums of three clients: collectors in England and in the USA and a dealer in Spain. I have also provided many clients with the pages relating to their country specialities, sometimes with several variations to the same page.

A complete list of countries for which forgeries were included in the albums is shown below. Where the country name is hyperlinked I have pages currently available. Click on the name for further details and illustrations. If nothing is at present offered do please let me know of your interest as my stocks are changing all the time.

These pages, many of which are very attractive in themselves, make an interesting and affordable addition to any collection.

Prices are quoted in US dollars either for complete pages as shown, for parts of a page that includes forgeries from more than one country or, in a few cases, for a group of pages. Payments may be made by personal cheque in US dollars, or by cheque or bank transfer for the equivalent in Euros or Sterling, or by . Air mail postage is included.

I look forward to hearing from you. If you click on the email enquiry link please add jamesbendon.com to complete the address.