There are probably as many fake Gilbert & Ellice/Kiribati plates in collections as genuine used ones.
These are all plates that are believed to be outright fakes with many of them having come from JD Applegate. JDA’s sales lists show many, many more fakes that he created but sadly there are no photos of them.
These are plates that are from the period before 1980 when the Gilbert & Ellice islands gained independence as Kiribati (1979) and Tuvulu (1978). Some were originally sold in the 1980s and there are also some plates that have appeared for sale, and have probably been made, up until 2013.
The most crudely made ones are almost all JDA fakes and the GEG and GE-G plates are a mixture of unknown maker(s) and JDA but older islanders remember that there were never any plates with G for government. Some have names of islands that have never existed (GE-B for Bank island is one) and a few are recent fakes from the likes of worldplatesuk (now agaplatesuk), being poorly made from old British plate blanks and some letters/numbers he found at an autojumble.
The Ocean Island plates are three that have numbers that are much too high and could possibly have come from Kiribati as made-to-order specials or be outright fakes but certainly never existed in real life and 3 that are probably JDA fakes. There are several other Ocean Island plates in collections similar to these fakes but their origins are less certain and they are not shown here.
If anyone has any further information about any of these plates please get in touch. Also, if anyone has photos of similar plates, please get in touch.
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