François Fournier

François Fournier was a Switzerland-based dealer and forger. His name today is synonymous with "forgery".

His business was based on producing facsimiles of exotic or rare stamps for collectors much like Gebrüder Senf, except that his creations were not plainly marked as facsimiles. His house organ, Le Fac-Simile, was quite popular. In contrast to how he is regarded today, he criticized speculation and the release of remainders to collectors. Many hundreds of stamps were forged along with cancels.

Upon his death in 1917, Charles Hirschberger took over his business. Hirschberger himself died in 1927, and the Union Philatelique de Genève bought his stock, creating albums of the remaining forgeries. Each forgery is handstamped "FAUX" or "FACSIMILE". The albums contain varying numbers of stamps since not enough stamps were available for the whole run of albums. A paperbound book of one of the more complete albums, illustrated in black and white, was published many years later. At least one CD version (in color) of one of the albums has also been made.





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