Peter Winter (philately)

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Peter Winter (born about 1941 in Germany) is a stamp reproducer. He was also trained as an opera singer.

He offered "50 of the most valuable and significant stamps, authentically reproduced" in the early 1980s, and indicated that in order to reproduce these stamps as authentic as possible, he refrained from marking them as reproductions and published them under the company label "Bruyère".

In or after 1985 he released rare stamps of various countries through "ProPhil Forum P.O.C." (Process Optimation Computersystems). Subsequently there were the reproductions of "Edition ‘85", then "Edition 88" , the later offered by the Swiss "House of Stamps". A special was the offering of the four of the most famous stamps of the world, the Mauritius "Post Office", the Penny Black, the Baden 9 Kreuzer error and the British Guiana 1c magenta for 249 DM.

The stamps were offered as reproductions by Winter, but their lack of permanent identification makes them easy objects of fraudulent activities targeted at unsuspecting collectors. Specialits may detect abnormal paper, indentations, lack of water marks and other signs incongruent with authenticity.

Winter did never indicate that his stamnps were genuine, they are sold as reproductions. However, his marks (such as "Faux", "Reprint", "Copy") often can be easily removed. Thus, Heiner Faber, a seller of stamps from Bonn, was convicted for having removed the marks and sold them as originals.

Winter produced falsified stamps that if real might be catalogued at $ 20 million. His offer to sell his stamps to the APS for $ 1 and stop producing reproductions was declined.