Is it illegal or is it good, clean fun? The stamping of passports for souvenir value seems as old a tradition as buying those horrific gift spoons, and this rampant passport defamation continues today, except now they're charging for it.
In our travels, we've run across the three biggest profiters from this racket: Liechtenstein, San Marino, and Berlin, although the latter is by far the worst of them.
In the picture above, the passport pages bear four fake stamps from the old Allied and Soviet sides of Berlin, stamps which could possibly invalidate the passport. There's even a discussion thread over at Lonely Planet regarding the legality of this tourist stamping, with particular attention to the prevalance of it around Berlin's Checkpoint Charlie. For 2€ each, you have your pick of the stamps, ranging from 4 different US sector versions to 2 Soviet designs, and even a few French thrown in for good measure. ]]>