Mary Peck Butterworth 1686-1775. American

The Rhode Island Forger.

Mary Butterworth was an early Colonial counterfeiter who figured out a way to use starched dampened cloths to lift printing ink from genuine bank notes and then, using a hot iron, transferred the design onto blank paper, later detailing by hand, the new note with quill and pen .

She must have been the true originator of two for the price of one!

Mary faced trial in 1723 when members of her family counterfeiting cottage industry turned state's evidence and testified against her but she was acquitted for lack of hard evidence.

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Catherine Murphy (British) C 1750.

 Counterfeiter.

In 1789, Catherine Murphy was convicted of 'coining,' the making of counterfeit coins, which was deemed to be high treason and as we know it today,

She was the last woman to be executed by burning at the stake at Newgate prison, for her part in the crime. Though her co-conspirators which included her husband, were hanged.

Robert 'Forger' Spring:  (1813- 1876) British

Autograph forger.

Robert Spring  was one of the first and most successful commercial autograph forgers of all time.

Born in England in 1813 he immigrated to the USA in 1858 to open a bookshop in Philadelphia.

His favourites and particular specialism of autograph forgery was to copy the signatures of George Washington, Benjamin Franklin and Horatio Nelson. Recreating them convincingly on the fly leaves of old books of which he had plentiful supply!

In order to market his product in the USA and Britain, he cleverly invented a new character in the guise of a respectable maidenly lady he called Miss Fanny Jackson, whose fake identity was that of the only daughter of General '"Stonewall" Jackson and convincingly to whom most of the American documents were related.

As she offloaded her vast collection of antiquated documents and letters onto the open market, seemingly to cope with financial difficulties, Spring worked full time to keep up with the demand!

From Martin Luther to Lincoln, believable letters, notes and even blank cheques flowed from his pen, but many times he had brushes with the law and was finally arrested in 1858 for receiving money under false pretences.

He jumped bail and fled to Canada where he continued to sell his historical documents pre aged with coffee grounds!

In 1869, having foolishly returned to America, he was arrested in Philadelphia, confessed to his crimes and imprisoned. 

He died a poor man in a charity hospital in 1876.

Ben and Jerry!

Reinhold Vasters:  (1827-1909) German

Jewllery forger.

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Vasters was a German master goldsmith and restorer who worked in Aachen from 1853 to 1890.

It is widely believed that he was responsible and the maker of many forgeries, attributed as priceless Renaissance jewellery.

In 1979, more than 1,000 workshop drawings by Vasters were discovered in the archives of the Victoria & Albert Museum in London and expert examination showed that these were fake pieces that had been sold to collections as Renaissance jewellery. Amongst the fakes he is believed to have created are; The Rospigliosi Cup sometimes referred to as the Cellini Cup and attributed to Jacop Billivert. The St. Hubert Tazza and a gold and emerald dragon pendant, thought to have been made in Spain at the end of the 16th century sold to the Rothchilds.

No known image

Denis Vrain Lucas: ( C 1830) French

 Autograph and manuscript forger.

Was the most blatant French contemporary autograph forger who executed forgeries from Galileo, Descartes, Newton, Rabelais to  Louis XIV

It's recorded that within an eight year career, he  produced and sold no less than 27,000 autographed manuscripts including a letter from Judas Iscariot to Mary Magdalene.

His downfall: Composing a letter from Cleopatra to Julius Caesar but in modern French!

Tadeu Hasdeu -aka- Bogdan Petriceicu-Hasdeu (1836-1907) (Pseud) Romanian

Antiquities forgery

Was a scholar and archivist who was a pioneer in Romanian language and historical studies but was likely responsible for the so-called 'Dacian' or 'Sinaia' lead plates. These were gibberish texts, probably manufactured to substantiate Romanian cultural nationalism in the 1880s.
Legend has it that the lead plates are in fact copies made at the Nail Factory of Sinaia in about 1875 from the originals, which were made out of gold.

They first appeared when the 200 lead plates were discovered in the archive warehouse of the Bucharest Museum of Antiquities in the late 19th century. Up to now, they have been widely ignored and considered as fakes because they looked so new, not showing any traces of corrosion.
Renewed interest in the plates has been shown however by experts more than a century later.

Tadeu Hasdeu

Eugene Boban:  (C1840) French

Artefact forger

Eugene Boban was a French collector of pre-Columbian artefacts.

Appointed as archaeologist to the court of Maximilian and a successful antiques dealer who latterly ran a lucrative business in Mexico City, it is believed between 1862 and 1880.

He was sent to Mexico by Napoleon III in 1860 to head a scientific commission to collect works of art which were to be exhibited in 1867 at the Trocadero Museum. Napoleon's idea, perhaps was to copy Napoleon 1st success in an attempt to emulate his earlier explorations in Egypt?

Experts widely believe that Boban may well have had a part in the forgery itself, let alone the deception of the British Museum in relation to their 'Aztec' rock crystal skull which was proven to be a fake after it was sold to them by Tiffany's in 1897 and another at Paris' Musée de l'Homme also suspect.

An investigation carried out by archivist, Jane Walsh at the Smithsonian in 1992, alleged that documents she unearthed reveal that it was Boban who had acquired the skull that were eventually sold to Tiffany's in 1897. She also uncovered evidence that it was Boban who some years earlier tried to sell the same skull to the Smithsonian themselves and that it was Boban himself  who sold a similar crystal skull to a collector who later donated it to the Musée de l'Homme in Paris.

 It is believed that Boban likely acquired the skulls from sources in Germany where large quantities of Brazilian quartz crystal were shipped in the early nineteenth century.

As to the mystery surrounding the crystal sculls, it is said that "he who reveals the secret will die!"

Eugene Boban C. 1860

Billy (William Smith) B. Circa 1834 and Charley (Charles Eaton) C1828  British

The Mudlark Forgers.

In the mid 1800's, an interesting controversy raged over the authenticity of a number of purported Medieval lead relics that suddenly started to appear in Londons' fashionable antiques community.

Billy Smith and Charley Eaton were enterprising rogues who would make a daily habit of scouring the banks of the river Thames at low water, searching for any items of value, such as coins or antiquities, previously dropped on the banks by pilgrims. In sophisticated London, there was always a good market in selling them on to wealthy dealers and collectors.

They did pretty well for themselves up until 1857 when they got tired of traipsing around in the mud and decided to start making antiquities of their own!

These 'new,' historical artefacts, they rogues cast in lead or pewter from moulds they had fashioned in plaster of Paris and from designs based on medieval images illustrated in the Journal of the British Archaeological Association or from drawings of objects that they had previously found.

In this way they were able to fashion fake daggers, brooches, statues and medallions, aging them in acid for antique effect.

To Billy and Charley though, both illiterate, any lettering or numbers on an artefact they made may have been written in Martian for all they knew.

They couldn't read, so lettering was just a jumble of pretty meaningless squiggles and patterns to them and inevitably, that would lead to their downfall! Or would it?

Sometimes they unwittingly used Arabic letters and numerals instead of Roman numerals in their creation of 11th and 12th and 13th century 'finds' and as history has it, Arabic didn't come into use in Europe till at least the fifteenth century!

Incredibly, Billy and Charlie escaped prosecution as there seemed to be nothing by statute of law that they'd actually done wrong.

It didn't stop there though and they continued to refine their production of lost artifacts seeking new markets which they very successfuly exploited.

Today estimates of their output is put at somewhere between 5000 and 10,000 items during their highly profitable careers!

Mario Terenzio Enrico Casalengo (1884 - 1970)  Italian  AKA: Henry Woodhouse

Document forger

Prolific forger reproducing and creating documents purportedly written by historical figures, though he was never actually convicted of his activities.

But was able to pursue his 'hobby' throughout most of his life, convincing dealers and collectors of the legitimacy of documents which later proved to be fakes.

Henry Woodhouse

"Baron" Charles Weisberg (D 1945) American

Autograph and Document forger.

Forged original letters along with surveys of mount Washington with signatures of the presidents and various celebrities.

Served two terms in prison for his crimes.

Charles Weisberg