Verifying authenticity and rooting out fakes.

• Position: Stamp Collecting - Brief article

With stamp collecting a popular hobby and lucrative investment, scientists describe in the journal Analytical Chemistry a comprehensive new way of verifying the authenticity and rooting out fakes of what may be the smallest and most valuable pieces of paper on Earth.

Ludovico Valli and his colleagues in the Department of Biological and Environmental Science and Technologies at Italy's University of Salento explain that museums, archives, and private stamp collectors long have been searching for better ways to confirm the authenticity of rare stamps, and details like cancellation marks that increase value. Until now, though, those approaches have been limited to individual components of a stamp, like the ink, or have relied on expert inspections.

Valli's team used a lab test called infrared spectroscopy to test all of the multiple...