The 100 Lire Forgery from Buenos Aires

Forgery and fraud troubles the postal services longer than the introduction of adhesives. Sending mails was always an expensive enjoyment and thus clever minds were looking for ways to save money.

The fact that Argentina is home to a large community of Italian emigrants, a fact not only known since Pope Francis – and that migrants try to keep in touch with their families back home is no secret either. Until August 1949, the Argentine government subsidized money transfers from Italian immigrants to Italy very substantially through a favorable exchange rate. The regular money transfers to the homeland were the most important, but often the only, source of income for many families in the rural south of post-war Italy – until it was eliminated or became extremely expensive.

In this situation, Francesco Percivalle in Buenos Aires entered the scene, who had already made good profits at Amantea in the province of Cosenza in 1945/46 by overprinting (genuine, postally valid) 25 c stamps with a (false) overprint “2 Lire” at the expense of the Italian postal service. Percivalle hired a printer in Buenos Aires to print “souvenir blocks” for a (pretended) International Stamp Exhibition in Milan, each containing four copies of the 100 L Democratica issued in 1946. He sold these blocks – or perhaps just the stamps thereof – in Buenos Aires to Italian workers, who could thus know that they were forgeries at the expense of the Italian postal service.

For Percivalle, however, the business did not end there: he also bought the envelopes franked with these stamps from the workers – and forwarded them into the philatelic market advertised as postal forgeries.

Many forgeries made to harm the postal service emphasis higher interest by the stamp collectors then the postal originals. We are offering a used pair in the October auction for a modest price, as these forgeries are not rare – but you can tell an exciting story about them.