The One Dollar Counterfeiter
amusingplanet.com
amusingplanet.com
The article doesn't explain why the Secret Service made this their biggest case, and it doesn't make much sense to me. If the dollars were accepted by the general population, it would cause an infinitesimal increase in inflation of no consequence to others. And if shopkeepers wised up to the false dollars and rejected them, at worst he was defrauding the public by a few hundred dollars a year. In either eventuality, surely the Secret Service had more notorious counterfeiters to track down?
Only long as you both accept the same shared understanding of what it is. If one of you believes it's counterfeit and the other doesn't (whether it actually is or isn't!)... then it's not effectively money, no. For example, I don't know about you, but I sure as hell wouldn't knowingly pass off a counterfeit on the basis that the supermarket would accept it.
Fiat currency has no inherent value - it's just a system of communal acceptance. If everyone accepts the fake coins then they ARE money. As you note, the system only breaks down if some people stop accepting it.
It'd be interesting if someone from the UK could chime in: Were you aware of all the fake pounds circulating (1 in 30!) ? Did you notice if you got one? Did you care?
I think you're directly affirming this: it's fine as long as you both accept the same shared understanding of what it is.
The US secret service was originally created specifically to combat counterfeit money, it's no surprise that they would keep tracking this man for a decade.
This man is unusual because he did the tiniest amount of one the most severely punished crime.
The first was in college. A buddy of mine scribbled a facsimile of a $20 onto a piece of paper with a green marker. He then handed it to the checkout clerk at the cafeteria who took it and started to hand them back change. He stopped her and said "no, no it's a joke - look at what I just handed you". She was embarrassed but they both laughed together.
The second story which does involve the Secret Service is when my friend had a bunch of presents that he had wrapped and put in his front porch until was going to depart for a party. One of the presents was wrapped in a sheet of uncut dollar bills - which you could buy for that purpose.
A neppy neighbor saw it through the window and called the police who called the FBI who called the Secret Service who came knocking on his door to investigate. They were also embarrassed but I don't think they laughed. My friend told him he understands that they're just doing their job and that it's an important one.
I remember my friend coming home from his first year in college and telling me about how he passed a counterfeit $30 he'd found to a clueless clerk and they actually made the correct change. My wise-ass response was that that wasn't actually counterfeit, it was just fraud.
It's still fraud, and an attempt to deceive.
Which we have.
If somebody beats someone else up, to teach him a lesson - this is also a direct attack on the state itself, the monopoly on violence.
But "large scale"? This old man with his crude tools and bad 1 dollar notes?
"The press adored him and the public sympathized with him. "
That is probably the bit, that got them engaged. Cannot have this set as an example that works out for someone.
not quite, the state monopolises _legitimate_ violence. it delegitimises the violence of individuals by making assault etc illegal.
This is empirically untrue [1].
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Counterfeit_money#Penalties_by...
All of those, I believe, have the death penalty for e.g. corporate fraud.
This is a bit of a nut job hypothesis. States don’t collapse because of private counterfeiting. It simply becomes an economic nuisance. The budget given to anti-counterfeiting in any country is generally a rounding error compared with other policing.
Which is pretty ironic, given that the state need not be involved in providing physical cash at all.
That would depend on how many counterfeit dollars were out there, which the authorities did not know at that point of the investigation
He started in 1938 and was arrested in 1948:
1938 23.42
1943 19.09
1948 13.70
On my first read I thought he had become a junk collector out of depression for the death of his wife.
I don't remember the last time I paid $20 in cash. [That's like AR$30K here in Argentina. For that ammount, we mostly use credit card, debit card or one of the apps with QR.]
example: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01L3536O2
In other words, Africa is a big place. Just say "Zimbabwe".
An easier option if you have one, is going to a forex office in Vietnam or somewhere - and even then they may not take it.
I was lumbered with a couple of them for a few years, until I dumped them in Uruguay.
I'd brought USD notes from Europe to spend and as an emergency fund. They were all brand new (sequential numbers) $50 notes, just what my bank gave me.
At the end of the trip, I swapped about $300 of old notes the tour staff had for $300 of new notes. This included a very slightly damaged $100 note which the tour guide said had been a tip, which he was unable to use because of the damage.
So as US currency degrades over time it slightly loses inter exchangeability in the third world.
I did have a food stand on the boardwalk in New Jersey once refuse a worn bill, which was wild. I think it was a $1 and it may have been slightly torn near a corner. I'd expect that if using USD outside the US, but I guess Jersey is different.
But even at exchanges, the bid for $50s was beating the ask for $1s, I was thinking there's a trivial arbitrage opportunity haha.
As kids, we were told more details - both to know about our extended family, and to support various lessons about poverty and charity and pre-WWII rural communities.
But one of the more subtle lessons was that "the law" and society's actual rules are, at best, overlapping circles on a Venn diagram. No matter what lawmakers, those invested in the legal system, and those telling simplistic stories to children might say.
Under ordinary circumstances, a federal counterfeiting arrest would have generated little sympathy. But the story of Emerich Juettner struck the public imagination immediately. Here was an old man surviving in poverty by printing crude one-dollar bills one at a time. He was not violent, greedy, or glamorous.
At trial, Juettner admitted his activities openly. The judge sentenced him to only a year and a day in prison, and he was paroled after 4 months. He was also made to pay a fine of $1. It has been agreed that Juettner’s complete lack of greed was the rationale behind the light sentence. …
Juettner returned to a life of normalcy, and lived out the rest of his days in the suburbs of Long Island, where he died in 1955, at the age of 79.
After his release, Juettner briefly achieved celebrity status. His notoriety became so widespread that Hollywood adapted the story into the 1950 film Mister 880, directed by Edmund Goulding. Eventually, Juettner made more money from the release of Mister 880 than he had made by counterfeiting.I wonder if the cashier checked the bill closely when he paid it.
> The 70-year-old retiree who became America’s worst counterfeiter. [link]
He evaded capture for 10 years, making him one of the best. Also got less than a slap on his wrist and ended up making legal money on the whole ordeal.
I don't think the materials are expensive, but the electricity required might be. So my guess is that this might make sense if someone steals the power. One guy was busted stealing electricity to mine bitcoin a few years ago.
OTOH, maybe they just do it for fun.
The biggest tells were poor reeding quality and slightly soft detailing. On very low quality fakes, the face and obverse weren't aligned, though I never encountered one of these in the wild.
Sadly not sure where they are now, they were also mixed in with a good few £5 coins I bought, I used to love paying for things with a £5 coin. Hope I find them again!
I recall reading that they were smuggled into the country by organized crime. They'd then sell them for around 60p on the pound to coin heavy businesses (esp. laundry and vending.)
Attempting this today would probably surely cost that much in today's dollars?
EDIT: on a second thought ..this almost feels like "proof of work" for currency :)
If I hypothetically set out to create a single fake one dollar bill that can pass for real ... i would have to spend a lot more than one dollar on the materials ro pull it off, surely?
https://coinweek.com/a-collectible-counterfeit-the-story-of-...
Granted, a nickel was worth more in the 1930s...but not that much more.
It's illegal to own these counterfeit nickels because it's illegal to own any counterfeit currency, but they pop up from time to time in collector circles. I don't think the Secret Service cares at this point.
There is an excellent book about him by Lawrence Weschler called _Boggs: A Comedy of Values_.
The 2025 movie is worth watching https://www.imdb.com/title/tt35495035/
I'm guessing this was before the law where you couldn't benefit from crimes?
In short, there are a great many US 100s out there that are so good that experts are required to spot them. The companies that sell/service the equipment necessary to print these only deal with national governments. So all eyes are on north korea.
I see what they did there.
At least this story shows that the lack of greed didn't improve quality.
Whatever legal business we are in otherwise, apparently it's the wrong one
Ignorance is not a rare trait.
It's ok for the govt to print as many notes as is needed to satisfy the govt's needs needs but it is not ok for the common Joe to do the same. One is labeled as inflation or quantitative easing and the other is labeled a crime
Money is actually generated by changing the interest on, and selling, bonds.
Various governments can, and many have, done what you describe, but banking in this day & age is about moving digits in a register, not shipping truckloads of $100-bills.