From the Voices and Echoes column in the March 2004 issue of Filatelie.

Both the scandals with the sales of the counterfeit letters (20h Hradčany and the letters in the Feldman auction,) that were described in detail in the previous issues of Filatelie, brought in the whole row of comments. Unfortunately, it appears that the inventory of the counterfeits (authenticated by some of our foremost specialists and sold by one of our foremost exhibitors) is far from complete, and what is the most important that this activity in essence continues without an interruption longer than anyone would suspect - longer than the unbelievable 15 years! The leadership of the Federation of Czech Philatelists (Svaz českých filatelistů = SČF) finally this time lost its patience and decided to establish some order in this area..

As the first step, all the activity of the SČF Commission of Experts was stopped the activities of the Chairman of this Commission were discontinued, also suspended was the activity of the SČF testing laboratory and decided not to renew the contractual agreement with its Director, Ing. Pavel Pitterman (who subsequently resigned from this function.) Already before, at the beginning of December 2003, the SČF Executive Committee took certain measures, on the basis of the established facts, to stop Ludvik Petliček's international activities exercised under the SČF patronage.

In both of these cases, these are serious decisions that are signalizing that the periods of the unscrupulous and irresponsible activities in our field are coming to the end. As it is in other in other countries, as far as the philately is concerned, finally even by us a decent personal and professional reputation becomes a commonplace requirement for the execution of the important functions in the management of our unified collector's organization. Definitely, we cannot allow ourselves to damage and discredit that what was accomplished in the current period: historically the best relationship between our organization and the Czech Postal Service, the successful participation of SČF in the FIP and FEPA organizations, the perspective of the forthcoming important exhibitions, the reduction in drop of our membership, the good working results of the majority of the individual clubs and the societies of specialists, the continuing publication and editorial activities in the philatelic field, presentations on the internet - all this and much more could be overshadowed by the unethical actions of a few individuals. The letters that we are receiving from you are documenting that our collectors are aware of it and are definitely not ready to accept it. The mistakes that were done should be clarified, and we should take a lesson from that and deduct personal conclusions.

We would like to thank to all collectors here at home and in the foreign countries who have commented on this theme. Because of the facts that were established thanks to that are very serious and currently identified, we will dedicate to them special material in the April issue of Filatelie.

                                                                              The Editors