The forger will use a couple of badly defective stamps as material to repair a stamp with a small thin or a pinhole. Fibers are scraped from the back of the defective stamp with the edge of razor blade, or a small chunk of the stamp is carefully cut out and then the fibers or cut out piece are placed over the thin of the stamp to be repaired. The substitute paper and the edges of the hole int the stamp are slightly moistened and then carefully hammered into place. When the paper has dried it is sanded with very fine sandpaper for evenness. For final effect a little eggwhite, colored to match the paper color of the stamp hardens the paper and the final product will easily fool the expert, nevermind you.

Is that stamp really mint never hinged, well you will never know for sure, you will need some expensive equipment to perform such tasks as spectro-analysis of gum color to be absolutely certain. However there are some tests that can weed out most of those regummed stamps.

To discover the regummed stamp

- compare to another stamp of that issue, is the color of the gum the same? Does it has the same glossiness? Does the good stamp have gum ridges and the suspect stamp not?
- Does the gum have a dull textured appearance? Genuine gum has some glossiness to it and has a smooth appearance
- Is the gum uneven? If so then chances are its a regummed stamp
- Does the watermark appear impressed to the gum? It should be only visible via strong light or by using watermark fluid
- Does it curl when placed face down on your hand for a few moments? A genuine gum stamp will not curl
- Do the perforations tips feel sharp? On a genuine gum stamp they will be soft.
- Does gum extend into the perforation holes? It should'nt, if there is gum on the edge of the perf holes than it is a regum. When stamps are made, gum is applied before the perforatino process. It is very hard for the forger to remove gum from the edges of the perf holes

In some instances are thin is just too large to hide, or there are too many perforations missing, in this case the forger will resort to rebacking a stamp. Not an easy process as it means applying a very thin piece of paper, stiffened and colored with egg white to the back of the stamp and copying the perfs with a reperf machine. If the stamp appears to thick or stiff check to see if it is rebacked. They are easy to spot as the reperforations will never glue themselves perfectly. I have seen single perfs glued to the back of stamps and pressed into place. Always check the back of a stamp carefully, let the back of the stamp excite you first, then look at the front. It's a common mistake to look at the front first, and be so carried away with enthuasism that you miss the tell tale signs of filled in perfs, regumming and rebacking.

The stamp pictured on your left was sold on ebay with a forged certificate. It was bid up twenty one times by twenty one idiots to $4,300 and positive feedback was left. A classic case of a fake cancel. Here we have a civil war cancel applied to a 1847 stamp. And the seller had a feedback of 1. You would think that would set the alarm bells ringing? I am sure that the forger did not use a mint pair but cleaned the cancel off a used pair.

Cancels are made to look better by removing the unsightly grease markings on the rim of the cancel. Sometimes part of the cancel is redrawn, this is a particular vice of stamps that are quite tied to a cover. Stamps that have had their cancels bleached off will almost always end up with a slightly faded appearance, which the crooked dealer will tell you is due to sunlight. Forget buying the faded mint stamp, chances are it is a regummed, cleaned stamp.

When cancels are reapplied, as is the case on the pair shown on the left, the new cancel will cover the area where the old cancel was. So if the cancel adds to the value, look carefully underneath it.

Does the cancel match the period and the post office, if on cover, does it have the right transit markings and was the rate correct for the destination.

Fake cancels can hide a multitude of sins, such as hiding the word specimen, or on the Newspaper stamps the word 'faux'. If its a valuable stamp and there is a black heavy rimmed cancel smashed on it, then it would benefit to look behind the black. See my articles on faking of these stamps.