My next trip to Vietnam took place in June 2001. At a local stamp club meeting, I learned that the forger's son-in-law in Hanoi was running the LK5 business. His name was "Mr. Smith" which is obviously not his real name. Le Anh Thu and I went to Hanoi to find Mr. Smith. After talking to many of the leading collectors, we found that Mr. Smith lived in a "bad" part of town and that there was no address! A rough map was drawn and we went to a distant part of town to begin the search. The neighborhood was about an hour or more from the Old City section. We walked down and asked about Mr. Smith or "the man that sells his father's stamps." Eventually, we found the home of the widow who sells fake stamps but was not home. A child there directed us to another house. With a high wall and an iron gate, the house was large by Vietnamese standards - large even by American standards.
Fake 1946 Ho Chi Minh Stamps
Mr. Smith invited us in after we mentioned the names of some dealers in Saigon. Mr. Smith was very shy about his operation and material. Initially, he did not seem to want to show much of it. He brought out a few items and I bought some at $5 a stamp. I knew the Saigon dealers only paid $3 per stamp and was told next time I come I will get a better price. I even managed to get sheetlets of LK4 and LK5 stamps.
Fake "Family Left Behind" Stamps
After about an hour, Mr. Smith brought out two large stock books filled with fakes. There were rows upon rows of fakes. Besides the Lien Khu stamps, there were many fakes of the early North Viet Nam issues, including the Mac Thi Buoi issue of 1956 plus the unissued stamps for the Russian revolution (Michel I) and the Korean Flying Horse (Michel II). We all talked about stamp collecting in the United States and Vietnam and eventually left. It had been a very satisfying day. The forger had been found and these covers proven to be fakes.
Fake Viet Minh Star Stamps
(Joe Cartafalsa-Society of Indochina philatelists)
