If you're interested in late-19th century countemporary counterfeits

[DaveG]

Over the last several years, I've been looking through Google Books for numismatic references.

 

As some of you know, it's a great source for 19th century publications, including Mint Annual Reports. The number of books and periodicals they've digitized continues to grow by leaps and bounds.

 

Recently, I stumbled across bound copies of "Dickerman's United States Treasury Counterfeit Detector" which was a monthly publication in the late 19th century. It seems to have been written for bankers and merchants has lots and lots of listings of the appearances of counterfeit coins and currency and the criminals who were attempting to pass them, as well as advertisements from banks and manufacturers of various money-related items, including counterfeit coin detecting scales (of which apparently Dickerman's was one).

 

Here's a link to a bound set from 1892 Link

 

I've found several other volumes - sometimes they're a little hard to find and you need to be creative with your searches.

[nwcs]

That was pretty fascinating reading how some of those people were passing counterfeits. Great link.

[WoodenJefferson]

 

About the same things are happening 100 years later.

[michael]

That was pretty fascinating reading how some of those people were passing counterfeits. Great link.

 

(thumbs u

[ldhair]

Fun stuff. (thumbs u