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.

The following are samples that I have obtained:

Cape of Good Hope

Finland

Italian States

Mauritius

Moldova

Sweden

Switzerland

Peter Winter - Spain Forgeries 1851-53

 These are the Peter Winter Spain excellent forgeries from 1850-1853.

I have them compared to the original on the left where there are split images.

1850 Forgeries

1. Large break above the 5
2. Large top serif on the L
3. Typical white blotch
4. No bulge on the 8
Very large margins

Winter forgery pair

Most of the letters and numerals do not match
Heavy shading in the eyelid
Broken frame lines
Uneven background

1851 Forgeries

Winter Color error

Winter Block

1852 Forgeries

1 The ribbon has a thick section and long end
2 Large curve at the right of the nostril
3 The lines below the headband are short and heavy
4 The small DO is short

1 The ribbon has a thick section and long end
2 Large curve at the right of the nostril
3 The lines below the headband are short and heavy
4 The small DO is short
5 The cancel is fake and too thick

1 The ribbon has a thick section and long end
2 Large curve at the right of the nostril
3 The lines below the headband are short and heavy
4 The small DO is shor

1853 Forgeries

Reproduced by photographic methods and printed by off-set.
1. Very definite break in the head of the S
2. White dots in the upper ear.
3. Very defined break at the base of Lower C.
4. The base of the small ‘s’ is straight.
5. Dot in the nose tip is missing
6. The 2 genuine trait lines in the large white space left below the ear are only partial

Peter Winter - German States Forgeries

Peter Winter founded the company ProPhilForum POC GmbH which in 1986, operated from a post office box address in Bremen, He 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.

Forgeries

I am not describing the forgeries, only showing them. In a few case where you see 2 divided stamps, the genuine is on the left, Winter forgery on the right.

Baden

 Bergedorf

Bremen

Brunswick

Hannover

Lubeck

Oldenburg

Saxony

Wurttemberg