Rex Lardner
Forgers and counterfeiters, as a class, are the most versatile of crooks and very likely the most persistent. While their creative skills differ — some relying on the gullibility of the public and others grimly trying to baffle the experts — they are an audacious, generally conscientious lot, proud of their artistic calling.
Some are quite whimsical. A check forger in California obtained cash for a check he signed “I. Nogota.” Other signatures similarly honored have been U. R. Stung and N. O. Funds. Still another practitioner of what is called white-collar larceny received money for a check drawn on his account in the East Bank of the Mississippi.
Despite care, some make slips. A short, toothless New York paper-money counterfeiter named Edward Mueller spelled the name of the first President wrong on his one-dollar bills. He spelled it WAHSINGTON. It should have been a tipoff to the recipient that he was getting Brand X money, but the Secret Service observes sadly that few people peer closely at a one-dollar bill.
A few count on the blind enthusiasm of hobbyists. Letters from Cleopatra to Mark Antony and from Socrates to Euclid have been sold to collectors of such historical treasures, considered the more valuable, perhaps, because they were written in French. An enterprising salesman of Buffalo Bill pictures — like those formerly sold at Wild West shows — shot them up to five times their worth by ingeniously signing Buffalo Bill’s name on them, using a ballpoint pen.
The dissimulation practiced by these rascals, driven by some irrepressible urge to challenge credulity, extends to nearly every field of human endeavor — art, archaeology, the sciences, literature, philately, autograph collecting, show business, gambling, and commerce. Whatever man hath wrought, going far back into the recesses of time, another man has sought to imitate — for self-satisfaction, out of resentment or frustration, or to earn money.
Throughout history people have been duped by phony statues, “undiscovered” plays and poems by famous authors, spurious Mona Lisas, fake rare coins, false wills, doctored documents, reed-filled mummies, bogus antiques bored by counterfeit worms, fraudulent first editions, tapestries, and old bones. And scores of other products: objets d’art, fossils, collectors’ items, and legal instruments.
The balance today is weighted less toward stone axes and lace than toward forged sweepstakes tickets, race-track tickets, liquor stamps, and orchestra seats for hit musicals, but the art has not died out. As befits the present age, characterized by our preoccupation with advertising, automobiles, and commerce unsullied by the use of cash, today’s booming forgeries are in the fields of trademark reproduction, auto licenses, and personal checks.
It is an oddity of human nature that while pickpockets arouse our disdain and muggers our fury, we are quite tolerant of most persons engaged in criminal fraud, forgery, and counterfeiting.
Perhaps it is because they are intellectual crimes, proving, in the area of shrewdness anyway, the superiority of man over the apes. Perhaps it is because the wily perpetrators of these offenses appear to be loners, valiantly pitting their wits against experts, bureaucrats, and other entrenched specialists whose dignity it is pleasant, now and again, to see punctured.
Another reason might be that duplicity of one sort or another is practiced in many legitimate business operations, in politics, diplomacy, the drama, and poker. Forgery, in its various guises, becomes merely a formalized and more dangerous projection of the art of deceit.
In the case of counterfeiting money, moreover, it is likely that most of us suffer from pangs of conscience and can identify, to a degree, with that familiar of the funny-money manufacturer, the passer. Having got stuck with a phony fifty-cent piece or five-dollar bill, we are roguishly tempted to sting someone else with it. This is preferable, certainly, to turning it in to the police, as the law demands, and a) accepting the tacit label of sucker and b) losing the value of the money.
For the successful forger of paintings, such as the late Hans van Megeeren, who in the 1940’s drew and scientifically aged “Vermeers,” we feel not admiration but awe. Here was a much-scorned artist, a tiny man with the knowledge and skill to make complete idiots out of the haughty art experts! In fact, although Van Megeeren confessed the forgeries and outlined in detail how and where he committed them, some critics keep insisting that Vermeer must have painted some of the Van Megeerens. There can be no higher tribute to a forger.
From a moral standpoint, wry appreciation of the talents of a Van Megeeren is understandable. For who is hurt? No damage is done except to the notion of infallibility of the critics and to the silk-lined pocket-book of the purchaser. On the other hand, the damage done by a man who gets his inspiration from the Bureau of Printing and Engraving, or its equivalent, can be monumental. Not only the shopkeeper, inn keeper, and gas-station owner suffer; the economy of an entire nation can be destroyed by the widespread circulation of counterfeit money.
Sturdy Venetian banks were staggered back on their heels in 1470 by the tactics of Duke Gallazeo Sforza of Milan, who made handsome counterfeits of the money of Venice during his war against that city. The idea has been adopted by many warring factions since — by Napoleon against the English, by Pitt against the French. It has been tried in time of peace — the most notable attempt being that of an Austrian prince named Ludwig Windischgraetz. The prince, who had political ambitions in Hungary and a grudge against France, planned in 1923 to print one hundred million dollars’ worth of 1,000-franc notes for a double purpose — to finance a Hungarian putsch and to destroy France’s financial structure. The counterfeits were clumsy, however, the scheme fell through, and the prince, arrested by Hungarian police, was sentenced to four years at hard labor.
Sometimes a quick solution to the budget problem can be more damaging to a country’s economy than a tricky enemy. Nero, Henry VIII, and Frederick the Great ruined the financial structures of their respective countries by issuing debased currency. It was legal and possibly necessary counterfeiting but no less disastrous. Potatoes replaced money.
Since counterfeiting has long been the prerogative of rulers — Polycrates of Samos and Queen Elizabeth also indulged — most of them have taken a dim view of competition by amateurs. The earliest counterfeiters, who clipped coins and made new ones from the shavings, had their ears clipped when caught. King Canute decreed that their hands should be cut off. The Romans deprived counterfeiters of their citizenship and then removed their ears and noses. Later, these steps not considered sufficiently discouraging, their ears, noses, hands, and feet were cut off and what was left was served to hungry lions. One presumes they were hungry. During the Renaissance punishment was equally severe. The counterfeiter’s hands and feet were removed, his eyes were gouged out, and he was drawn, quartered, and put together again so he could be burned at the stake. Counterfeiting remained a flourishing profession, but there were few second-offenders.
In the American colonies in the 1600’s, because cash money was scarce, wampum was used as currency. At first the Indians fooled the settlers with phony wampum, but soon the wily white man turned the tables. Counterfeit wampum made of glass beads was secretly made in England and shipped to America. For a while it fooled the Indians; then wampum currency collapsed.
Counterfeiters of bills of credit — which replaced wampum — were punished, when caught, by being forced to sit in the pillory for an hour, losing an ear, and spending a year in jail. In the pattern of these things, the penalty was not tough enough. So it was jumped to a public whipping, loss of both ears, and being nailed to the pillory. But this did not stop the collapse of currency based on bills of credit.