Fake Mukti Fouz and Boy Scout Covers
New Heading
- This cover bears a stamp of the Chittagong Field Post Office. Note that the stamp is the same as used on many of the covers on the previous page.
- This cover looks genuine because it is torn open. The cancellation reads Bangladesh P O No 13 and is dated 8 August 1971.
- This cover has the fake Jessore printed overprints on them and a cancellation of Jhinkagacha. Many of the fake covers have the date of 1 December 1971 on them, suggesting they were made by the same person/people.
- This cancellation is totally in Bengali. Note that the overprinted stamp is the same one used on many other fake covers.
- At the top of the Cancellation is "Bangladesh Mukti Bahinini". It also has one of the commonly used stamps on fakes.
- The above cover has many different imprints. It has a Censor marking, and there is a misspelling in Mukti Fouj[sic]. The cancellation is in Bengali. On the back is a mark similar to the cover above stating,"Bangladesh Mukti Bahini". The stamp has no rubberstamp overprint.
Boy Scout Covers
It is an exciting and heroic idea to think that the Boy Scouts of then East Pakistan (Fighting for a country they then called Bangladesh) would have contributed to the war effort by carrying mail for the liberation and guerrila forces, etc. While it makes a nice story it is largely mythological. Knowing that there is a large market for Boy Scout items, some of the Indian dealers went overboard in their enthusiasm to make money. Hundreds of fake covers were created, claiming to be carried by the Boy Scouts.
One must be realistic about the situation. First of all, the people of the then emerging country spoke Bengali and their language had been surpressed by the Pakistani Government for years. Why would covers be created celebrating this alleged endeavor bear the markings of such in English, and not the language they spoke - Bengali? The answer is very simple. Most collectors of Scout philatelic material are familiar with, or can speak English, and could readily identify with it. Many items were stamped with the name Bangladesh in Bengali and English, stamps, documents, currency, etc., either legally, or illegally, to triumph their liberation and pride in their language.
The post offices in the liberated areas were told to add the name Bangladesh in Bengali and English on the large quantities of Pakistani stamps in the post offices under their control. Each post office was permitted to come up with their own design as there was no way the new government could collect all the stamps from the post offices and overprint them. There was a hodge podge of various issues in the hundreds of post offices. If you look at the fake covers illustrated on these pages, you will notice many have the same stamps, with the same overprint. It would have been physically impossible for the liberation forces to have the same overprinted stamps all over the country. Many Bangladesh collectors, Bangladeshis and foreigners, stay clear of the overprinted stamps as the overprints too were heavily faked by Indian dealers living along the border. They would create their own varieties of overprints and send packets of envelops with the stamps on them to Bangladesh, and have them cancelled at a post office. Later, such was offered as proof that they were genuine and cancelled at a real post office. Plus the dealers then had many varieties to sell.
While it may be true that one or two times a group of Scouts carred some mail, it was not to to the extent that many people would like to believe. By far, the majority of the fake covers were sold to dealers outside of Asia who knew nothing about them, other than what they were told. Some major Indian dealers bought them, knowing they were fakes, but insisted they were genuine. The author of this catalog purchased Mukti Fouz covers from a major Indian dealer back in the 1970s, along with sets of mint overprinted stamps. Both the covers and the overprints on the stamps turned out to be fake and the dealer is still selling them today, insisting they are genuine.
- This cover is not said to be carried by the Boy Scouts, but it bears a Boy Scout overprinted stamp from Pakistan, with a Bangladesh overprint printed over it. Very few of the oveprints were printed as the post offices did not have the facilities to do any printing. They were largely done with rubber stamps and applied by hand to the stamps. It is doubtful that this printed overprint of the Bangladesh overprint is genuine. The Pakistani stamp was for an event that took place in 1959 and the War of Liberation was in 1971, that is 12 years later. It is doubtful that this stamp would have been in a post office at that late date. New varieties of overprinted stamps are constantly appearing. Topicals are very common.
The cover has fake cancellations and is allegedy from Chuadanga and was addressed to Mujibnagar by someone who was not very good at writing in English.
- The upper red imprint reads, "Mail Carried by Bangladesh Boys[sic] Scouts/From...To...Batch.../Time...Date...Unit...". The purple impring reads, 10 Dec.1971/Mongla River Port/Liberated by Mukti Fouze". The cancellation reads, "Liberation Forces/Naval Sector Head Quarters" The center of the cancellation states, "River Camp (?)/11.1.?? (?)/No - 8". The back has a date of 13 December 1971. Great appeal to the collector, but a fake.
- The imprint referring to the Boy Scouts is different. The point of origin of the cover is allegedly Basantapur-Khulna on July 28, 1971. The alleged receiving date is 31 July 1971. The overprint is the printed Jessore overprint.
- This cover was allegedly sent from Kaligunj-Khulna on 19 May 1971, to Darsana.
- This cover was allegedly from the Chittagong Hill Tracts and was received at Mymensingh. In the two cancellations are the words "Mukti Bahini".
- The above cover was allegedly posted at Basantapur Khulna on 17 May 1971 and received at Mujibnagar on 19 May 1971,
- The stamps are cancelled with a Chittagong Hills Tracts cancellation and a received cancellation of Dacca, the capital. Later the spelling was changed to Dhakka. The stamps do not have any overprint.
- The purple impression reads, "7 Dec. 1971/Maulavi Baear Chhatak/Fenchugang Sunamgang/Sylhet Town/Liberated by Mukti Fouze". The cover allegedly was posted at Sylhet and was received at Barisal.
The stamps on the back have no overprint. Whoever made this cover did not think the situation completely through. It bears an impression about the Boy Scouts and the Mukti Fouze, but the stamps are not overprinted. The population was anxious to erase the name Pakistan from everthing in the new country and the stamps would have certainly been overprinted. Again one must ask why would all these messages be in English, with these towns being liberated, they had the time to make the rubber stamp to stamp on the envelope, but they didn't think it was important to overprint the stamps?