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Jiggery - Pokeryby Robert C. Willey
(Reprinted from the "Canadian Numismatic Journal", Feb., 1992. Used with permission.)
We have seen a fair number of items in Canadian numismatics that have their origin in the so-called Schattenseite of the hobby. Counterfeit coins - made to deceive the public and defraud the state - have plagued mankind since coins were invented. Counterfeiting of coins, especially gold and silver, was in earlier times seen by the law as high treason, since the sovereign personally guaranteed the quality and value of the coinage. The royal portrait or coat of arms, or both, constituted the guarantee to the public that the money was good. Counterfeit coins were always of inferior workmanship, since in their attempts to imitate by the cheapest possible manner the forgers could not hope to duplicate the work of the legitimate government engravers. The desire to do it cheaply also meant inferior metallic content. Brass, tombac where available, or gilded lead or pewter were used to make counterfeit gold coins. Pewter, lead, cupronickel in later times, or billon was used to counterfeit silver. The consequences to the forger when caught were horrifying. Punishment was meted out with exemplary severity. Agonising torture followed by some spectacularly horrible death was the inevitable end, and the legal records of every nation contain many examples. As time progressed, counterfeiting was looked upon as equally serious, but the punishments became more humane. Transportation for long periods gave way in turn to terms of imprisonment, which is the case today.
Canada has seen several cases of counterfeiting, one of the earliest in the history of the decimal coinage being the appearance of cupro-nickel forgeries of the twenty-cent piece of 1858. These were described by McLachlan in his 1886 monograph "A Descriptive Catalogue of Coins, Tokens and Medals issued in or relating to the Dominion of Canada and Newfoundland ". These were struck counterfeits. At the same time, according to McLachlan (ibid.), cast counterfeits were made in lead. Casting in lead was the usual method of counterfeiting in the Victorian period and for some years afterwards. Moulds were made from genuine coins, and by this method many counterfeit fifty-cent pieces were made. Lead was usually used, and later pewter was used because it was of a better colour. Counterfeits were made not only of the fifty-cent piece but also of the quarter, dime, and even the five-cent piece. Counterfeits were even made of the nickel five-cent piece issued from 1922 on. Believe it or not, it once was considered worthwhile to counterfeit the lowly five-cent piece. Many years ago, one of the popular American magazines carried a cartoon showing an unkempt individual bent over some plates for printing false bank notes. In walks his shabbily-dressed little girl who asks, "Daddy, please make me a nickel."
In the middle years of this century many a counterfeit fifty-cent piece circulated. Occasionally these were purchased and resold by dealers who at the time were ignorant of the criteria for distinguishing the genuine from the false. I well remember a collector many years ago proudly showing me a 1931 fifty-cent piece for which he paid a good price only to learn from me that the coin was a counterfeit. It was cast in lead. In Windsor , Ontario in 1951 or 1952, the R.C.M.P. pounced on some forgers about to circulate their shiny new fifty-cent pieces. They discovered a barrel of pewter fifty-cent pieces ready to be introduced through the medium of the tavern and bar in payment for drinks. In the 1960s the city of Kamloops was flooded with counterfeit quarters, which turned up in vending machines all over the city.
One of the strangest cases occurred in 1919, if the date on counterfeit coins can be taken as prima facie evidence of their year of manufacture. The fifty-cent piece was counterfeited in .800 fine silver and struck from dies dated 1919. The obverse bears a large, crude crowned bust of George V, with the legend in coarse lettering. The reverse bears the value and date in coarse lettering, enclosed by a crude wreath with a larger crown. It is doubtful if these pieces appeared in any quantity, for it costs much more to cut dies than to prepare casting moulds, and silver is far more expensive than lead or pewter. It is an interesting example of the forger's art, and no doubt the facts of the case lie buried somewhere in the files of the R.C.M.P. or the federal Department of Justice.
Another form of cheating is passing one denomination off as another. Small cents have frequently been coated with mercury and passed off as dimes, and large cents were similarly treated to be passed off on the unwary as quarters. Newfoundland twenty-cent pieces have been tampered with to facilitate passing them off as quarters. These can always be detected, for the numeral of value was crudely erased or defaced to facilitate this form of cheating. One need hardly point out that those whose ears could hear what their eyes could not see were never deceived.
A bogus or spurious coin is a counterfeit of which there never was a genuine example. No cents were coined in 1885, and it was some time before this was realised by early collectors. Before 1890 it was thought that the 1885 cent was an elusive rarity, and there was an active search for specimens. In time some enterprising individual decided to supply the demand by altering the date on 1886 cents to 1885. The whole venture was torpedoed when McLachlan published proof that no cents were coined for Canada in 1885. This is the sole bogus piece in Canadian numismatics. There are other years, 1877 for instance, when no Canadian coins were made, but nobody has ever tried to market, for example, an 1877 quarter. These days it is just too well known by collectors and dealers that nothing was coined in 1877 for Canada .
Fakes or fabrications are copies made to deceive collectors. Certain dates are exceedingly rare, and these have been faked from time to time to supply the demand. The earliest were made by altering the dates of commoner coins. The 1898 dime was made into an 1893 with a round-topped three by cutting open the left hand side of the final eight. This did not produce a three of the proper shape, and inevitably there were signs the coin had been tampered with. The fifty-cent of 1921 has been faked by altering the dates of coins dated 1931, 1929 and (ludicrously) 1911. The dotted 1936 cent and dime have both been faked by adding variously-conceived dots, blobs, spots and pimples to the reverses of regular 1936 coins. In the late 1950s the 1926 Far Six five-cent piece attracted attention, and some were found that proved to have begun their career as copies of the Near Six variety but were subjected to a bit of "surgery" to remove a milllimetre or two from the top of the six to widen the pace separating the numeral from the maple leaf. Signs of tampering betrayed this fraud.
In the last thirty years the bullion fake began to affect things. These were generally cast coins, of the legal weight and fineness since they were made for the bullion trade of the Orient and elsewhere. When they began to appear on the numismatic market in Europe and America they constituted a serious problem. It was soon realized that money could be made faking rarities, and soon the classic rarities of most countries began turning up. Canadian gold coins and the scarce silver dollars have been cast in recent years. It is believed in some quarters now that more fake 1948 silver dollars are extant than genuine. There have been several instances of the faking of the Canadian $5 and $10 pieces of 1912-14, and the fakes are well documented now. The $20 piece of 1967 was faked several times, in a few cases without any attempt to duplicate the high lustre of the genuine pieces. These have also been well documented. Occasionally, fakes have been made of the rare Canadian sovereigns. As far as is known, the later gold $100 pieces have not yet been faked, nor have the Newfoundland gold $2 pieces. Recently a fake fifty-cent piece of Queen Victoria was submitted to a grading service. It was well made, but did not bear too close examination.
In these times of high prices for earlier Canadian coins in the better grades despite the depressing fact that very few can afford to buy, it is important to guard against fakes, for it is by no means far-fetched to believe that the jiggery-pokerists will fake rarities and offer them for sale at considerably lower prices and thus deceive individuals who may be able to afford the attractively low price of such "brummagem" wares but not the higher price of the legitimate coin.
************************************************************************ Editor's comments to the above article.
Bob Willey was right: counterfeit coins have been around as long as there have been genuine coins. About a century-and-a-quarter ago, some museum numismatists in Europe obtained an example of one of the western world's earliest coins: a dumpy electrum (about 75% gold, 25% silver) piece from Lydia , dating back to 600 B.C. or earlier. By most criteria, it was genuine: by design and weight. But they found its specific gravity to be off and they investigated this anomaly - unbelievably! - by destructive assay, sawing the coin in two! It was found that rather than being of pure electrum, it was composed of a fairly thick electrum coating over a pure silver core. Instead of the piece containing about 75% gold, the content was closer to 5 or 10%. We believe that at the time the gold-to-silver value ratio was in the order of 1 to 12 to 15. Obviously a lot of value had been extracted from the coin by someone and the cheat covered up by making the dumpy piece a little thicker, thus restoring its proper weight. The coin had a certain amount of wear, attesting to the fact that it passed without comment at the time.
Counterfeiting must have been going on in Canada virtually from its earliest days, just like everywhere else. Certainly laws against it accompanied every issue of coin. The earliest case of which we are aware in New France was that of Pierre Malidor, Surgeon, who, on 7 March 1690 was found guilty of having counterfeited eleven cards of 4-livres each. He was sentenced to six lashes at each of several "customary places", to make restitution for the 44-livres in question, to pay a fine to the King of ten livres, to serve "compulsory service" for three years at a distance from Quebec City of not less than sixty leagues and to remain imprisoned until such time as someone chose to engage his services. His was the first of several such cases brought before the Council at nearly this same time.
There were other means by which a profit could be realized on the circulating coin other than counterfeiting and in British America , the colonials widely practiced the paring and shaving of coin. Since the Massachusetts silver pieces, British "broads" and Spanish "pistareens" were all wide, thin coins, they could be - and were - cut into halves and quarters to make smaller denominations that were rarely available "in the round". In doing so, a small shaving or silver sliver was typically set aside to be later sold as bullion, silver being valued at something like 5s sterling or more per ounce and most working men receiving a wage of only a few pence per day. In extreme cases, a whole coin might be cut into fifths rather than the expected quarter for the extra profit. Today, we may have a difficult time judging exactly what the original "denomination" was on these cut pieces but we may be sure that "face" was never more than the proportion of the piece to the whole. But it didn't stop there. Since much of the British American colonial commerce was conducted with the crude Spanish-American "cobs" (8-, 4-, 2- and 1-real), it was almost universal that they be pared to lightness by 10% or so. Those foolish enough to pay with full-weight "cobs" were not admired for their honesty as much as censured for not having reduced the coins to their "proper" weight - which the recipient would certainly promptly do - and even held as sinners, having failed to prosper from the Lord's bounty and rather spurned it. The human mind and morals are obviously malleable.
At times, counterfeits could fill a need. In the late 1700s, most of the copper coin circulating in Britain (about 92% according to a report of 1787) was fake. If not encouraged, it was at least tolerated since the authorities held the "tokens of the poor", as they called such coin, in small regard. At worst the penalty for counterfeiting or "uttering" (knowingly passing a counterfeit) copper coin was a misdemeanour, and even that could be avoided by slight changes in the legend, a ploy easily foisted on a largely illiterate public.
The counterfeiting or uttering of the British silver coin was quite something else, penalties being imprisonment or transportation. And counterfeiting or uttering gold coin or Bank of England notes - the currency of the rich and powerful - bought you the noose.
In western Canada there was another "money-raising project" conducted around 1900 in British Columbia and Alberta . Silver 5- and 10-cent pieces from the Straits Settlements ( Malaya ) were imported and passed at "face". Even though they each contained slightly more silver than their Canadian counterparts, they were fractional parts of the Malayan dollar with an exchange value of just 30¢ Canadian. It helped that the obverses all showed the same monarch - Victoria or Edward VII - as Canada .
But these instances were all for the "benefit" of the public. Much more insidious are those that must pass muster in the collectors' market. The earliest "collecting days" in Europe started with the Renaissance and numismatics was very much a rich man's game, all of whom strove for the bragging rights of the best as well as the most. At the time, "collectors' coins" was almost by definition those of ancient Greece and Rome . Before long, their demands were being met beyond the available legitimate supply by talented "artists". Worn ancient coins were being sharpened to UNC status by re-engraving, which today we call "chased coins". But many were totally manufactured, even being struck in medal presses. The favourite target was the big Roman sestertius and these superior copies might be of an actual coin, of a "previously unknown" mule, or something that never before existed. The best of these came from the shops of Padua , Italy , and today form a collecting category all their own: the "Paduans". They may be distinguished by being entirely too good - round planchets, well-centered designs, highly-struck devices and beautiful patinas. The "real" sestertii usually have at least some weakness in the legend, rather oblong planchets, slightly off-center at best and subject to patches of deposits and corrosion. In the early 1700s, one "Becker the Counterfeiter" followed the tradition of the Paduans although he tended to assiduously copy actual coins.
In our traditional British/American numismatic world, the first jiggery-pokery in the non-ancient field was in the copying of the crude plate obsidional coins of England 's Charles I during the upheavals of the 1640s. According to Thomas Snelling, one of England 's earliest professional numismatists, they started to appear in the early 1700s. Today, 300 years later, these pieces may have an extremely long pedigree of owners, "proving" that they are the real article.
A concoction that appeared in the U.S. circa 1960, purporting to be a "heart-pierced" dollar from Dominica , a "Type 4" that genuinely appeared in 1770-2. This fraud was easily detected with the crude piercing, the lack of a patterned border around the piercing, and the fact that it is on a 1772-Mo 8-reales "Bust type" dollar. Even though produced 1770-2, genuine pieces are all on "Pillar type" dollars, none of which are known dated later than 1770.
Along the same lines, the cut-and-counterstamped coins of the West Indies have been subject to at least three spates of jiggery-pokery when common Spanish-American dollars and their aliquot parts have been used as the basis for producing copies as well as "previously unknown" pieces. The most dangerous period of production was in the 1890s, well over a century ago, when the "products" give evidence of having benefited from the knowledge of an accomplished numismatist. Some of these, as well, may have a considerable pedigree, lending to their cachet of genuineness. The British Commonwealth numismatic authority, Fred Pridmore, tried long and hard to sort the fact from the fictional but even he had to admit to considerable "gray zones".
Then there is the expansion on Bob's notation of counterfeit Canadian gold coins - although it not limited to them. Twenty or thirty years ago, it was generally believed that the hub for such productions was Lebanon . Whoever it was, they were using a new technology at the time to manufacture their dies: "spark erosion". This method allows any coin face to be exactly reproduced as a negative relief in a die face. "Exactly" is their weak spot for it faithfully reproduces every die weakness of the original coin, every scratch, nick, ding and bag mark - and they all have them, short of MS-70s and Proofs. We then can use these slight defects as diagnostic points. And if two coins have exactly the same defects or wear - tiny or large - we may be sure that they are counterfeits no matter that their weight, fineness and whatever else is correct. Beware: circulated coins in decent condition such as VF and EF have also been counterfeited by this method.
Today we have a new worry. The computer has advanced so far that even some of the banknotes are at risk of jiggery-pokery. But - so far as I know - they are unable thus far to reproduce the raised engraved lines found on the old notes.
Rule One: When in doubt, valuable items should pass Third Party inspection. Rule Two: If still in doubt, don't.
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Aug 2008Scenes from the Berlin Mint, 1876
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