Jean de Sperati & the Roth series
I have to admit that philately, or stamp collecting, is not my thing so it came as a surprise to me when I became fascinated by the exploits of Jean de Sperati, an Italian master forger of philatelic specimens. Sperati was born in 1884 into a family of stamp dealers and printers in Pistola, Italy. His real name was Giovanni Desperati. I love 'desperati', it conjures up all kinds of character possibilities for a novelist. He separated it to de Sperati, probably at the time he went to live in Aix-en-Provence in France. The French version doesn't have the same allure. Little Giovanni learnt his trade in the family business which was then operating in Pisa. Then he started producing fake stamps. In this context fakes are genuine specimens altered to increase their value which is done by changing the colour, design or denomination so the forger's creation looks like, and hopefully passes as, a more valuable stamp. When you sell them as the real article they're forge...