Covers: Alteration (tooling, adding
mint marks); Casting (centrifugal); False Dies (engraving
tools, from electroplates, from casts, explosive impact); Collars; Planchets; Striking (hammering jigs and the 'gravity hammer'); and Wear/Patina.
In
his forward, H.
Robert Campbell (former President of the
ANA), describes
Numismatic Forgery as a "
cook book" on creating
counterfeits and alterations. Wayne Homren reported that copies of the manuscript were shown to students at the
ANA summer
Counterfeit Detection Seminar. Seminar staff stopped using it when they realized the book's explicit and technical nature.
Although written in the
style of a "how-to" manual for
replica and clandestine workshops, the book's target audience is collectors and authenticators. To employ Mr. Larson's techniques for crime you'd need to know the basics of precious metal casting, tool and die machining, gunsmithing, and
numismatics. For readers without a metal lathe but with a serious interest in authentication and forgery-fighting, the book will provide an understanding of the covert minting process.
I was most impressed by Larson's treatment of the manufacture of steel dies through explosive impact copying.
His procedure involves modifying shotguns to drive
cast hubs into annealed dies. Larson's diagrams are explicit enough to convince the
numismatist that explosive copying is practical. Details only of use to criminals, such as the
type and quantity of gunpowder to use, are deliberately withheld from the reader.
Larson quotes (page 164) an anonymous authenticator who examined 114 1916-S quarter eagles during the 1980s. 56% of them turned out to be
fake! Hi-volume forgers in the Middle East and the Orient *already know* many of Larson's techniques.
Numismatic Forgery may provide a few useful tips to jewelers and machinists independently turning to crime, but the primary value of the book is to educate collectors in the characteristics of the illicit workshop.
The president of
NGC is quoted on the back cover saying "Exciting, entertaining, and educational. Charles Larson takes us on a journey into the mind of the 'forger' and leaves us with the
tools necessary to detect
his work."
The casting of
ancient coins is discussed, and nine pages on cutting dies by hand focus on ancients. Wayne Sayles' book on
Greek Coins is shown in a photograph on page 60--as an example of the ancient coin forger's research reference
tools! Larson does not cover the techniques of engraving, but merely names the
tools. Larson shows the dies he created for striking
replica Athenian and
Alexander tetradrachms, and Persian siglos/daric.
Two shortcuts are discussed for the modern celator, including a clever way to print a photograph of the source coin directly on the blank die before carving.
Mr. Larson operates a web site which (formerly?) sold replicas of
ancient coins and Mormon
gold coins. Technical articles on their manufacture were also on the site, including a draft of chapter 5 of
Numismatic Forgery. http://www.coinsmith.com/
