Classic Stamp Forgeries: Peter Winter Master Forger

Peter Winter was well known as an opera singer from Germany and master imitator of worldwide stamps.

Winter (1941-2018) did not keep records of his work in the 1970s, 1980s or later.

He did not keep any invoices or receipts; he worked mostly in the background and mostly with re-sellers. It was his intention that nothing should be verifiable that would give him the appearance of a forger. For him, they were artistic products, imitations, replicas and facsimiles of the original genuine stamps.

He founded the company ProPhilForum POC GmbH which in 1986, operated from a post office box address in Bremen, began to produce and sell replicas of more than 180 of the world's most valuable stamps, both on and off cover, for modest prices.

Some of the reproductions were determined to have been made not from the stamps themselves but from copyright photographs which Winter had obtained from the British Library in London by means of a false declaration of intended use.

Peter Winter

Some of his best work are the early Mauritius which he perfected with many retries. The one most in demand was probably his block of 4 US inverted Jenny.

One of his best forgeries was the 1934 Liechtenstein Vaduz souvenir sheet.

He also produced bogus stamps, the most famous being "The Lady Diana Queen of Hearts" souvenir sheet. He sold out 50,000 copies greatly increasing his coffers.