Secret in history museum's archive has an illegal past

This is part of our series Hidden Treasures, where we delve into the storage rooms of museums across the National Capital Region to find out what weird and wonderful things they havetucked away there. We'll post a new story every Wednesday throughout the summer, and you can find them all ontheCBCOttawa website.

Deep inside the Canadian Museum of Historyis an item with a shady pastabrass plate used to create forgeries of some of the first stamps ever produced in Canada.

Bianca Gendreau, a manager in the museum's research division, said the plate was used to create fakes of Nova Scotia and New Brunswick's first stamps issuedin 1851.

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Collectors hadbeencomingacross the forgeries for yearsbut didn't know how they were being created, Gendreau said.

"We knew that the forgeries existed on the market of those stamps and we never knew that the New Brunswick stamps and the Nova Scotia stamps were made on the same plate."

The plate was donated to the museum in 2013 after being found at a flea market in Belgium, she said.

When the forgeries were first created they would have been used bypeople trying to treatthem as postage, but today the plate could be used to createstamps that arequitevaluable to collectors.

"I am glad this is out of the market, because even today you could reproduce these stamps. It is a good thing this is out of circulation," Gendreausaid.

But she has to admire theplate asa piece of art in its own right. "There is only [a] one-millimetre difference between the real one and the forgery.These are very nicely done and very accurate."

Researchers don't know who created the forged plate or how it ended up in Belgium, and are hoping anyone with information cancome forward.

The museumhas two authentic versions of the stamp on display, but the forged plate is being kept in the archive for now.

Gendreau said stamps are important milestones in a country's history, which is why the museum keepsthem.

"Stamps tell you a story about Canadian history, about Canadian society. Even today they're a reflection of what is happening."

Printing plate helps museum solve mystery of forged stamps

8 years ago

Duration 1:31

Researcher Bianca Gendreau explains how a printing plate acquired by the Canadian Museum of History solved the mystery of how stamps were being forged in 1851.