Collection consists of a variety of forged and fake Canada, British Columbia and Nova Scotia postage stamps and postal markings. Some were created by Andre Frodel, while others are disputed in their origin (see Attributions and Conjectures note) and may have been created by or for Frederick E. Eaton.
Frodel, Andrej, 1890-1963 : Andrzej Frodel, farmer, stamp forger, who would come to be known as André Frodel in Canada, was born in Lvov, Ukraine, worked in the Hungarian State Bank Note Company before World War II, gaining an extensive knowledge of stamp papers and lithographic inks. After the war he was part of the Polish Resettlement Corps in the United Kingdom. As a veteran of the Polish forces, and by marrying a family friend who had earlier emmigrated to Canada, he was able to obtain a grant of land near Iddesleigh, Alberta, under the Canada Veteran's Land Act, and emmigrated to Canada in 1948. The small farm failed to prosper, so Frodel and his second wife (his first wife had died during the war) sold the property in 1956 and moved to British Columbia. In B.C., Frodel drew on his expertise in inks, lithography and paper to eke out a modest living by altering stamps with such skill that only those knowledgeable on particular stamp issues could identify them as fakes. Some who knew Frodel and who have written about him allege that Frodel's intention was to make a living by demonstrating his skills for the interest of philatelists, rather than to engage in fraud, and that he was not complicit with some unscrupulous dealers who sold his work as unaltered stamps. The facts that Frodel earned small sums from these efforts, and that experts in the postage stamp issues involved were unlikely to be fooled, are used to support this view. The techniques that Frodel used to repair, reperforate, regum, and otherwise modify stamps are unknown, as is the extent of his production in this area, and the portion of it that entered the market as genuine. Kraemer, James E.. "Who was André Frodel." Opusculum 1; an Anthology of Philatelic and Historical Papers. (This source is particularly valuable as it deals with the Frodel materials acquired by the National Archives from Frederick Eaton.)
Topping, Bill. "The Frodel Story." BNA Topics (January-February 1993): 16-19.
