The Arthur Salm Foundation

The Salm Foundation was organized by the Collectors Club of Chicago in March 1991 in order to conduct technical research on philatelic products, and to report on matters relevant to philatelic forgeries and fantasies. Funding was donated by the Salm family, with the CCC providing a matching grant. Salm Foundation officers serve without compensation. The CCC has published a series of six pamphlets on a variety of philatelic products and subjects.

For those items submitted to physical and chemical testing procedures, the documented test results include the name and publisher of each item, as well as complete descriptions.

The number of philatelic products submitted to the testing procedures were extensive, and included album pages, stamp hinges, stock books, mounting corners, glassine envelopes, stamped envelopes, computer paper for printing pages, forged stamps, pressure-sensitive self-adhesive United States stamps, and more. One-Hundred-forty-six commercial products were tested, not including the various forged stamps specified in the reports.

More than 6,000 hard copies of these reports have been distributed worldwide, and not a single product report has been challenged successfully.