François Fournier

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François Fournier (born 1846 in Croix-de-Rozon, Switzerland; died 1917) was a reproducer of stamps.

1 Biography
2 After his death
3 Quote
4 References
5 Literature
6 See also
7 External links

[edit] Biography

Fournier, born in Switzerland, became a French citizen and served in the army during the Franco-Prussian War in 1870/71. He returned to Switzerland and settled down in Geneva, where in 1904 he bought the company of bankrupt predecessor Louis-Henri Mercier alias Henri Goegg, who was one of the early forgers in the 19th century and had founded his company in 1892 and had been awarded several gold medals and diplomas for his stamp copies at different stamp exhibitions.

Soon, Fournier started to make reproductions – nobly expressed facsimiles – on his own in a great quantity. Moreover he employed skilled engravers, for example Venturini from Torino – an early master of his trade, who delivered his good copies to Fournier, where they were provided with Fournier's false cancellations. This also is the reason for the different quality of his products – one time dilettantish and easily identifiable, the other time nearly perfect. From 1910 to 1914 he advertised his work in an own journal and price-list, Le Fac-Simile. Fournier claimed to have more than 20,000 registered customers. By 1914 he had reproduced 3,671 different stamps and offered them through a catalog to eager buyers at low cost.^[1]

Some considered his work as useful and reasonable – to give less moneyed collectors a chance to fill their albums –, while the others damned his work as criminal forgery, probably for commercial reasons, too. Anybody who wanted to buy the greatest rarities for a few Franken was a lost customer of the specialised trade. Thus Fournier became a thorn in the leading stamp dealers' flesh, and the fight against his trade expanded into the trade journals. The choice of words was not timid. That today it is not illegal to produce and to spread reproductions, often was and is ignored. Importantly, however, it should not become a fraudulent act. Nothing is condemnable about a trade with an inerasable marker indicating a reproduction or a repairs, in contrast to those where this indicator is missing.

World War I created sales problems to Fournier's ventures and his company got into serious trouble, his health declined and he died in 1917. He was entombed in his birthplace Croix-de-Rozon.

[edit] After his death

One of his employees, Charles Hirschburger, continued the company with moderate success until his death in 1927. Afterwards his widow sold the remainder of 400 kg facsimiles as well as the factory equipment to the Union Philatelique de Genève, which in 1928 made 475 numbered albums out of it, that were sold to inspectors, interested people, and museums for a price of $ 25.00 – nowadays a sought-after work. The equipment was bequeathed to the Historical Museum Geneva. The remaining stock of forgeries were burned on September 17, 1928 under notarial supervision.

To date many of Fournier's products are used for fraudulence, what never might change. All his life he was never charged with fraud and he has never made an attempt to sell his works to the collector as genuine.

[edit] Quote

I fake in the same way that an art shop reproduces the canvases of Cézanne or Monet. (quoted in Gustav Schenk, The Romance of the Postage Stamp, p 198)

[edit] References

^ Gustav Schenk. The Romance of the Postage Stamp. Doubleday & Co, Garden City, NY (1959), page 199

[edit] Literature

Union Philatélique de Genève: Album des Fac-Similés, 1928 (In French)
Varro E. Tyler: Philatelic Forgers: Their Lives and Works., Linn's, USA 1991. ISBN 0-940403-37-4
Wolfgang Maaßen: "Echt oder Falsch? Fälschungen und Fälscher in der Philatelie", Phil*Creativ Verlag, Schwalmtal 2003. ISBN 3-932198-48-4 (In German)