Predictions made here some months ago that the Defense Savings stamps would likely be counterfeited recently materialized when Secret Service agents rounded up six counterfeiters in New York, who had already prepared $50,000 face value in bogus 25¢ stamps when the seizure was made.  The plate and 210,000 imperforate stamps were confiscated, none having yet been circulated.  A feature of the story still puzzles me.  A "spokesman for the Treasury" was quoted as saying that had the stamps been distributed, the Government would have been the ultimate victim since "it would have had to redeem every counterfeit stamp turned in."  Unless the Treasury has radically amended its policy I have never known Uncle Sam to redeem counterfeits, and the last holder is always the one who is out of pocket, but never the Government.
 
 

- George B. Sloane
Sloane's Column
Stamps

May 30, 1942

  Posted January 4, 2000 

Index of 507 Notes from the Past

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