Classic Stamp Forgeries: Baldwin's Railroad

Craig & Melvin of New Brunswick perpetrated a very good bogus scheme.

Edward Craig & Robert Melvin started a coin and stamp dealership in the spring of 1865 in Saint John NB They soon created their only bogus local, advertised as "Baldwin’s Railroad Postage"

The name for the post was supposedly inspired by an "H. Baldwin" who operated an express office on the European and North American Railway line.

To "age" it properly they chose for the denomination of the sta.mp "Two Pence" making use of a currency that had been obsolete in the province for five or six years.

Issued in July of 1865, an ad for the Baldwin stamp appeared in the first issue of George Stewart’s "Stamp Collector’s Monthly Gazette"

These stamps were engraved by Thomas Gregory and printed by J.& A. McMillan. During the first printing, three colors of ink were used on five colors of paper. 1,500 stamps were printed, 100 of each color combination.

Another notice soon appeared

"As our stock is rather limited, there being only a few extant, collectors had better send in their orders at once. The set of fifteen varieties we sell for $1.50. Samples mailed on receipt of 25 cents."

Craig & Melvin went out of business in November of 1865 and appear to have sold the remainders along with the printing block to Allan Taylor.

Most existing copies are Taylor’s version.

Taylor also acquired the die, which he reworked to print additional stamps. This created some constant flaws.

Taylor had moved from Montreal to the US so he promoted a new origin.

The foregoing appeared in the Stamp Collector's Record of December, 1865.

"L. H. W., Jersey City. We explained in our last that Baldwin's stamps were U.S. Locals, they have nothing whatever to do with the province of New Brunswick. The pence is explained very easily. At the time those stamps were current it was customary to count by pence, a penny being equivalent to a cent, but that relic of "British connection" has since gone out of use and is now happily extinct.

The stamp with the figure of Justice with scales and inscription City Dispatch one cent delivery is another of Baldwin's stamps."

ln 1866, George Stewart, Jr. exposed the stamps as fakes. Taylor did not give in after the claims were made. Instead, he created his own stamp for the bogus post.

This stamp, which read "PAlD" in the center, he claimed was the genuine stamp of Baldwin's Railroad Post, and that the previous stamps were forgeries created by Stewart.

He also published a letter supposedly written by the post's proprietor (H. Baldwin of N.Y.) to "prove" the authenticity of the bogus post itself. The letter read:

"In the years 1847 and 1848, I conveyed letters and packages between New York and various towns in New Jersey, including New Brunswick.
I did issue a strip of two or three different values but I have not seen them in upwards of sixteen years, and have no idea where any of them may be found."

Taylor continued to sell both his "genuine" bogus and the remainders of Craig & Melvin's stamps that he listed as "manufactures" for several years.