A most unusual and interesting item being a letter dated 1896 from a stamp dealer to his customer regarding a couple of German States forgeries and a Ceylon Wyon head item which states "I have handed to Benhjamin, it will cost you 20/- as there is considerable work putting on the corners etc but he says it will be well worth a fiver when done".
So, who was this Benjamin character? In 1888 Alfred Benjamin and Julian Hippolite Sarpy opened a stamp shop in Cullum Street, London. The shop specialised in forgeries which they sold as genuine, these creations mainly being produced by G K Jeffreys and it would come as no surprise if the Benjamin of Cullum Street also added corners to rare early Ceylon stamps and we would speculate that the stamp in question may well have been the rare 4d of 1859, now catalogued at £4,500. That they were a bad lot named the "London Gang" is a matter of public record as Benjamin and Sarpy were convicted at Thames Police Court in 1892 on charges of forging stamps and conspiracy. Benjamin was sentenced to 6 months hard labour and Sarpy to four. Undeterred, they were still operating out of Cullum Street until the 1920's and whether the stamps they sold were genuine or forged, we don't know but as our letter is dated four years after the convictions, it would appear the Benjamin was still up to no good.
