N. Imperato

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Nino Imperato (born c. 1890s), [1] normally known just as N. Imperato, was a stamp forger based in Genoa, Italy in the early 1920s.

Like Francois Fournier, Imperato promoted his forgeries as facsimiles available to the collector at a fraction of the cost of the real thing. His house journal, Il-Fac-simile, went through at least nineteen editions between 1920 and 1922. [2] Amongst other content the journal included two short articles by fellow forger (or distributor of forgeries) Angelo Panelli.

Work

Forgeries were produced of a wide range of stamps, including: [2]

Many other were offered too but it is thought that they had actually been produced years earlier by Erasmo Oneglia of Turin. [2] Robson Lowe and Carl Walske speculate in their book on Ongelia that he retired around 1920 [3] and it may be around then that Imperato acquired his stock of Oneglia forgeries. [4]

Notes and references

  1. Lowe & Walske state Imperato said his mother was 52 in 1920, p. 31.
  2. 1 2 3 Tyler, Varro E. Philatelic Forgers: Their Lives and Works. Revised edition. Sidney, Ohio: Linn's Stamp News, 1991, pp.57-58. ISBN   0-940403-37-4
  3. Lowe, Robson & Carl Walske. The Oneglia Engraved Forgeries Commonly Attributed to Angelo Panelli. Limassol, Cyprus: James Bendon Ltd., 1996, p.22. ISBN   9963-579-73-6
  4. Lowe & Walkse, p.31.