Plácido Ramón de Torres
Spanish stamp forger (c. 1847 – c. 1910s) / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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Ramón Antonio Plácido de Torres (c. 1847 – c. 1910s), known as Plácido Ramón de Torres, was a Spanish stamp illustrator, dealer, and forger.
Plácido Ramón de Torres | |
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Born | Ramón Antonio Plácido de Torres |
Baptised | September 1847[1] |
Died | c. 1910s[1] |
Other names |
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Occupations |
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Notable work | Álbum Ilustrado para sellos de correo (1879) |
He was a foundling who was adopted as an infant by Ramón Domingo de Torres of Estepona, Spain. Nothing else is known of his youth. He or the family moved to Italy and in the 1860s Torres was working as an apprentice lithographer when he met the book editor Elia Carlo Usigli for whom he produced illustrations of stamps that were used worldwide in stamp collecting publications.
With Usigli and others, Torres gradually moved from illustrating stamps to forging them. He had shops in Italy and later Spain, and sold forgeries in those countries and on foreign selling trips. He was also involved in a number of schemes of doubtful legality, such as the sale to collectors of stamps for Andorra before the authorities had approved them and which ultimately were not approved. He forged Italian municipal revenue stamps. He was arrested three times. In 1874, he was forced to leave Italy for his native Spain where he lived in Barcelona for the rest of his life. His date of death is unknown.
It has been estimated by his biographer Gerhard Lang-Valchs that 10% of the forgeries on the philatelic market are the work of Torres.