The Proud Forger ( VILLAGE TALES Ep.5 )

A genius counterfeiter doesn’t like the credit an ‘amateur’ is getting he himself deserves. 

There’s pride in some crafts even though they are illegal. 

And what does pride come before . . . ?

Almost every week there seems to be a new coin minted to celebrate a person’s life, a historic event or some obscure anniversary. It may just be to give the designers something to do, the numismatists something to collect, or the forgers another challenge.

Paul, who runs our village shop, due to his handling of change on a daily basis has a list of coins in circulation some of which are worth in excess of a thousand pounds. As a person steeped in antiques I find it unbelievable that a coin produced so recently could be worth far in excess of its face value, but Paul tells me it’s due mainly to minting errors, and rarity.

As I was picking up my paper one morning, and being the only customer at the time, he called me to one side,

‘There,’ he said, ‘what do you think of that?’

So saying he put a pound coin into my hand. The motif on the one side was one I’d seen often, and on the other as usual, the queen’s head.

‘It’s a pound coin,’ I said, because it was.

‘Looks like it,’ was Paul’s reply then went on to tell me that what I held was a forgery. I looked closer but could tell no difference until Paul gave me another to compare. Even then they looked identical in every respect until he then pointed out at least three minute discrepancies, which then became blindingly obvious.

‘A collectors piece?’ I suggested but he shook his head and explained it would be illegal not to report it but then whispered he did photograph them and had a collection, of photographs.

My experience in the antiques trade, of which you are familiar I’m sure, has led me to spot a fake a mile off. A dubious secretaire or a mis-matched bombe commode was a piece of cake compared to coinage. I asked Paul if finding counterfeit currency was common in his shop?

‘Not common,’he replied, ‘two or three notes and a handful of coins a month.’ Then went on to tell me the UK has the most counterfeited coinage in the world.

I looked around to check I was still the only customer and that no one was in earshot,

‘Do you think the counterfeiter is local then? In our village?’

‘No,’ Paul was quite positive, ‘you’d never do it on your own doorstep. He, or she, would go up to London or where the tills are busier and no one has time to check. What I get is what circulating generally, given as change somewhere then I get it.’

‘So do you know who gives it to you?’

‘Only if it’s a note and it fails my detector, otherwise I go through the coins later, then pass them on the police.’

‘You must lose money?’

Paul explained that he was insured so long as he kept the receipts he got most of the money back. 

The following morning I at last got round to reading the paper whilst sat in my front garden. Paul walked past briskly with his dog and shouted something about a ‘coincidence’ to which I nodded knowingly at the same time as having no idea what he was on about. That is until I got to page four and a headline announcing that after months of painstaking work the police had caught the master forger that they had been looking for. They claimed this counterfeiter was an extraordinary craftsman and his workmanship was the finest they had ever seen and indistinguishable from the real thing. I wonder sometimes whether the police exaggerate the ruthlessness and expertise of criminals just to make their occasional successes more admirable. If the forger’s work was that good, I thought it a shame that he couldn’t have found work of a legal nature in which to make his name. I presumed what Paul had shown me was an example of his excellent work, nevertheless he was able to tell it was a forgery.

I followed the case with some interest, at the same time began routinely examining my change. As The Old Drum and Monkey, my local, was where I spent most of my cash, and received the same, it was where I spent the most time scrutinising each coin with the bonus of dis-approving looks from the Dave, the landlord.

Sat in the garden on one of those benches you have to get into like a pair of trousers, I would hold notes up to the sun, when it bothered to shine, trying to find any flaws but my skills were lacking and I could detect nothing. With my superb golden ale to one side and a small pile of cash, I went through the routine of comparing one coin with another using the magnifying glass I always carry. As I did, I was joined by someone I had seen in the pub but never spoken to.

‘Are you looking for a forgery?’ He said and I agreed I was, but not having much luck.

‘You know that if you find one, you can’t spend it.’

I agreed that I thought that was the case, but added that no one would know I knew. I might keep the coin as a souvenir. At this he smiled,

‘Now why would you do that?’

I explained that I had been a dealer in antiques, and had a fondness and admiration for the skills I’d seen. Skills that were no longer appreciated, and certainly never found in a flat-pack. As I warmed to my subject I noticed he had begun examining the coins that I had put to one side as being legal tender. Of the six or seven, he pulled out one and shook his head.

‘That’s a wrong ‘un,’ he told me, then began sorting through the rest of the coins until he had separated several ‘wrong ‘uns’.

He finished his half of Guinness then stood to leave and I wondered how he could be so expert at spotting forgeries.

‘Ah, sure it’s just an interest,’ he said and left me thinking there was more to it.

‘Have you seen the latest?’ Paul from the shop bellowed across the road before crossing and handing me a paper over my front gate,

‘Page two,’ he continued, ‘now there’s a real craftsman.’

The news item stated that the paper had received a phone call from someone claiming that the forger the authorities currently held in custody was an inept amateur and by no means an extraordinary craftsman and that his pathetic attempts at forgery were easily detected and that’s what had led to his arrest. The paper went on to say that the caller would send several examples of real craftsmanship. Before going to press with the claim, they had waited for the package, then had the contents examined. They found what the caller had claimed was true having only been able to detect the coins as forgeries in a forensic laboratory.

A recording of the phone call and the package, were passed on to the appropriate authority. The paper delighted in the theory that the person who had contacted them objected to his workmanship lacking recognition and was offended by the accolades credited to the forger in custody, who’s work he considered vastly inferior. He was therefore determined that everyone should know what real craftsmanship looked like.

Some weeks later it was that determination that led to Michael Sean Flynn having to ‘help the police with their enquires’. It led to a court case but when his sentence was decided it was unusually brief for such a serious crime. Recently the paper followed up the story by declaring that, Michael Sean Flynn, is still helping the police with their enquiries, but being paid to do so in an official capacity. It was good to know that a real craftsman had found honest work.

A cottage on the estate became vacant soon after Michael Flynn was arrested. As Paul said no forger would pass their work locally so what coins he had found, and those picked out for me in the pub garden, were the work of, as Michael put it, an inept amateur, and certainly not his, not that we would have known.

I no longer look closely at my change, I don’t think I could detect a ‘wrong-un’ anyway, so like most people, I’d rather not know and be able to spend it.

Listen to Village Tales and other short stories from the HONKEYMOON CAFE

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Written and read by Barkley Johnson.