The above seems to have been an almost isolated attempt to defraud the revenue, but it is interesting as being the earliest known forgery, appearing, as it did, within four months of the issue of the first postage-stamp.
A far more romantic forgery, and one of almost colossal magnitude, was discovered in 1898. About that time, a large quantity of British One Shilling stamps--those of the 1865 type in green, with large uncoloured letters in the corners--came on the market, though, as they had been used on telegram forms, they ought to have been destroyed: probably the guilty parties relied on this official practice, not always honoured in observance, as offering a security against not merely the tracing of the offence but the discovering of the fraud itself.
Anyhow, after a lapse of twenty-six years, it was found that amongst these one shilling stamps there was a large proportion of forgeries (purporting to be from plate 5), all used on July 23, 1872, at the Stock Exchange Telegraph Office, London, E.C. More recent discoveries show that the fraud was continued for over twelve months,[16] and, as an indication of the precautions taken by the forgers, plate 6 (which came into use in March, 1872) was duly imitated, although the change of the small figures was a detail probably never noticed by members of the general public.
According to calculations, based on the average numbers used on several days, the Post Office must have lost about £50 a day during the period mentioned above. Who were the originators and perpetrators of the fraud will probably never be known: possibly a stock-broker's clerk (or a small "syndicate" of those gentlemen), or, more probably, a clerk in the Post Office itself. It was an ingenious fraud, well planned and cleverly carried out at a minimum of risk, and, but for the market for old stamps, it would never have been discovered.
Amongst foreign countries, Spain has been the greatest sufferer from forgery: her numerous, and until recent times almost yearly, issues were mainly necessitated by the circulation of counterfeits, which appeared on letters within a very short time after each new series of stamps had been put on sale.
Some of the old Italian States, particularly Naples and the Neapolitan Provinces, were defrauded of part of their revenue by numerous forgeries of some of their stamps; and in these cases, as in that of Spain, letters survive on which the postage has been entirely, or in part, "paid" by means of counterfeits.