diff --git a/gramps/src/latin_utf8.py b/gramps/src/latin_utf8.py
index 66707dc74..a02715439 100644
--- a/gramps/src/latin_utf8.py
+++ b/gramps/src/latin_utf8.py
@@ -39,7 +39,7 @@ else:
             try:
                 return y.encode("iso-8859-1")
             except:
-                return y.encode("<Invalid UNICODE>")
+                return s
 
         def latin_to_utf8(s):
             buff = cStringIO.StringIO()