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The One Dollar Counterfeiter
- gobdovan 5mo agoFun fact: in parts of East Africa, a $50 bill may be worth about 60-70 $1 dollar bills, due to the $1 bill being easier to counterfeit (and also more likely worn down).
- Barbing 5mo agoImmersed yourself there or…?
- dnnddidiej 5mo agoThat guy East Africas
- freak42 5mo ago[flagged]
- m463 5mo agoIn parts of the USA (well, amazon.com), you can buy bills of $10,000,000,000 from Africa for very little. example: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01L3536O2 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01L3536O2
- eesmith 5mo agoIn parts of the US (well, eBay.com) you can by bills of 50 trillion from Europe for very little. In other words, Africa is a big place. Just say "Zimbabwe".
- fch42 5mo agoGerman 50 Trillion (Marks) _stamps_ from 1923 are (literally) a-dime-a-dozen because postal services had a giant amount of them printed for issue in fall-1923 - just to have the whole lot rendered obsolete by the November currency reform. Unstamped/new they're not worth the paper they're printed on. Verifiably used / franked actually on a postal package they are much rarer. Fortune reversal - the worthless item becoming the collectible...
- JKCalhoun 5mo agoI'd like to think that they would switch to scientific notation past a million…
- noduerme 5mo agoVery interesting. It's probably because fewer people take the time to counterfeit $50s, $10s or $2s than anything else. What about $100 bills? In Argentina, if you have an older $100 bill, no one will take it. And apparently there's a roaring trade in fake $20s in Costa Rica, which I only learned at a casino there recently when I took USD directly out of an ATM and had it inspected by a pit boss in the same establishment. It's ironic, because if I were someone with an interest in counterfeiting, I'd focus on forging Pesos or Colones or something no one looks at before I'd take a stab at USD.
- madaxe_again 5mo agoI’ve had USD rejected both for being too new and for being too old in various corners of the earth - different cultures seem to want their currency differently aged.
- noduerme 5mo agoAnd the only places you can change a €500 note are outside of Europe.
- shrx 5mo agowhat?
- madaxe_again 5mo agoNobody will accept a €500 note in Europe - not even banks - you have to get it changed at a central bank, and you can expect a lot of questions, like “what kind of drugs did you sell to get this?” 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.
- noduerme 5mo agoYeah, it's truly strange because up until around 2012, I used to pay my rent with €500 notes when I lived in Spain. Just go down to the bank and get them. Then there was some sort of crackdown on drug smuggling and no one would touch them. Barbaric, rather fascistic or communist way of dealing with a social problem, since of course this means normal people can't pay rent in cash anymore without a ton of bills, and the only real purpose is to track so much more of the casual, unofficial economy. Drug dealers do find ways around.
- RobotToaster 5mo ago>He was also made to pay a fine of $1 I wonder if the cashier checked the bill closely when he paid it.
- Lutzb 5mo agoMaybe it was a test.
- DoctorOetker 5mo agoit would be impossible to rely on the test, the cashier could keep the fake dollar to frame it or sell it later, and chip in the real dollar themself.
- Barbing 5mo agoIf he wrote a check the office would’ve had a bet pool on whether it would be returned
- Barbing 5mo agoUnder 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. (Edit - thanks, leaving as a highlight)
- a_t48 5mo agoLiterally the single paragraph you omitted: 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.
- Barbing 5mo ago(Thank you!)
- neonstatic 5mo ago> References: > 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.
- kristianp 5mo agoOne dollar in 1943 is worth about $19 today's dollars. He started in 1938 and was arrested in 1948: 1938 23.42 1943 19.09 1948 13.70 Enough to buy some supplies, but how did he pay the rent? Perhaps he owned his apartment. https://www.in2013dollars.com/us/inflation/1948?amount=1 https://www.in2013dollars.com/us/inflation/1948?amount=1
- kennywinker 5mo ago> Juettner began working as a maintenance man and building superintendent in New York's Upper East Side. His job allowed him and his family to live rent free in the basement of the building where he worked.
- kristianp 5mo agoYes, but he was forced to counterfeit when that job ended.
- probably_wrong 5mo agoI think it's a fairly reasonable assumption that he retired (he was 60 in the 1930s) but the article could have made that part explicit. On my first read I thought he had become a junk collector out of depression for the death of his wife.
- noduerme 5mo agoWould owning his apartment disqualify him from being a folk hero? If he was a renter, does he deserve to be a hero? Just wondering. If he'd gotten rich from printing fake currency and become a right wing dictator would you think the same as if he was just a broke tenant? Why or why not?
- miksuko 5mo agoThe hell are you talking about?
- seabass-labrax 5mo ago> 10 years went by and the search for Mister 880 turned into the largest and most expensive counterfeit investigation in Secret Service history. 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?
- noduerme 5mo agoMaybe it's just that any investigation that takes 10 years is by definition one of the more expensive ones.
- gradschool 5mo agoA small leak can sink a ship. The fake dollars weren't knowingly accepted. If public confidence in the value of money is lost, we're all in big trouble. The Secret Service was right to pursue the case zealously.
- HarHarVeryFunny 5mo agoI think the public take a pretty pragmatic view on this and don't care as long as they are not losing money on it. A few years ago it was estimated that 3% or so of the 1 pound coins in the UK were fake (there is now a more secure coin type); AFAIK the quality was pretty good, so they weren't glaringly obvious, and it seems no-one really cared - if the supermarket or pub would accept it, then it's effectively money, right?
- dataflow 5mo ago> if the supermarket or pub would accept it, then it's effectively money, right? 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.
- albert_e 5mo agoIs it possible that he might have spent almost $1 in materials and labor and allocated capital expenses on equipment ... to create each of these counterfeits. 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 :)
- selcuka 5mo agoThe U.S. government spends approximately 4.1 cents [1] to produce each $1 bill. It would probably be more expensive to counterfeit it because of the volume, but I doubt it would be more than $1. [1] https://www.federalreserve.gov/faqs/currency_12771.htm https://www.federalreserve.gov/faqs/currency_12771.htm
- dgacmu 5mo agoThe US penny and nickel are the only bits of currency we use that cost more to produce than their face value.
- albert_e 5mo agoI meant the cost of counterfeiting 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?
- bananamogul 5mo agoNow let's take that up a notch with the story of Francis Henning, who counterfeited nickels. https://coinweek.com/a-collectible-counterfeit-the-story-of-henning-nickels/ 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.
- 5mo ago
- selcuka 5mo ago> He was also made to pay a fine of $1. I see what they did there.
- Paracompact 5mo ago[flagged]
- nubg 5mo agoOr perhaps, you're posting AI generated comments and should bugger off!
- Paracompact 5mo agoReally not AI generated, I promise, nor even AI assisted. Just a little too whimsical or self-important for HN's taste, I suppose.
- OutOfHere 5mo agoAccusing someone of using AI is a pretty bad thing to do. It's even worse when it's qualified by "perhaps". If you have something meaningful to say, try responding to the meat of the comment, not to who or what authored it.
- spwa4 5mo agoThese days it is much more effective to pay employees to swap payment terminals (or just employees doing it themselves), changing where the money ends up, and banks don't really know what to do about it.
- zdkl 5mo ago[dead]
- azepoi 5mo agoIt reminds me of Bojarski https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ceslaw_Bojarski https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ceslaw_Bojarski The 2025 movie is worth watching https://www.imdb.com/title/tt35495035/ https://www.imdb.com/title/tt35495035/
- calrain 5mo agoThe lack of greed is wonderful. It makes me think of how many endeavours would have succeeded if the founders and advisors weren't greedy. At least this story shows that the lack of greed didn't improve quality.
- JCharante 5mo ago> Eventually, Juettner made more money from the release of Mister 880 than he had made by counterfeiting I'm guessing this was before the law where you couldn't benefit from crimes?
- andreareina 5mo agoFirst enacted 1977 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Son_of_Sam_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Son_of_Sam_law
- bell-cot 5mo agoOld family story: Back in the 1920's and 1930's, one of my cousins (a bit removed) was a poacher in rural northern Michigan. Everyone from the County Sheriff on down knew that she was a poacher. Everyone also knew that she was a widow with several children, living in (even for the place and time) grim poverty, and the she was poaching to feed her children. 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.
- mplanchard 5mo agoIf you want to know more, there is a much better and very entertainingly written series of articles about this, from a 1949 issue of the New Yorker: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1949/08/27/old-eight-eighty-i https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1949/08/27/old-eight-eigh...
- m348e912 5mo agohttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YcuDTEbR8CE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YcuDTEbR8CE. Mr 880, a movie loosely based on the case.
- morkalork 5mo agohttps://archive.ph/MLJHu https://archive.ph/MLJHu
- retired 5mo agoEmerich Juettner would approve of bypassing a paywall for a news article.
- mplanchard 5mo agoI don’t get a paywall for this even in private browsing. Just me somehow?
- thekevan 5mo agoI didn't get a paywall, either. Brave with Ublock Origin on Win11
- kccqzy 5mo agoThat article had an unsatisfactory and anti-climatic ending. It ended right when the Secret Service arrested the counterfeiter, where a normal reader would expect more discussion of how the Secret Service found the man and how they questioned the man after the arrest.
- 5mo ago
- forinti 5mo agoAbout 20 years ago there was a gang that made fake Brazilian R$1 coins (they must have been worth 50 US cents then, I don't recall precisely). And I have collected a couple of very shady R$0,50 coins that I'm pretty sure are fake. I collect commemorative coins so I always check my change carefully. 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.
- bhickey 5mo agoThis was pretty common with £1 coins until they moved to bimetallic coinage. The fakes would be rejected by vending machines. 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.
- ljf 5mo agoBack in the 2000s/10s I had a little jar of various £1 and a couple 50p I was certain were fake. Interestingly the fake £1 I got most frequently were -from- vending machines - I wonder if those refilling them slipped them in? 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!
- forinti 5mo agoAren't 5 pound coins worth more than the face value?
- ljf 5mo agoReally? Man that's a shame, you used to be able to 'buy' them at the post office for £5 - so I'd get at least £50worth a month and spend them around east London, I seemed to find it hilarious at the time - but after a quick chat I don't remember anyone refusing them anywhere.
- hankerapp 5mo agoSlightly off-topic, but the first time I saw a (real) 2-dollar bill, I almost called the Secret Service on a customer. Was then educated about the legality of 2-dollar bills.
- teddyh 5mo agoAsk Steve Wozniak about his two-dollar bills.
- sidewndr46 5mo agoSo you're the person that called the cops on that guy at Best Buy?
- hankerapp 5mo agoI don't know which story you are talking about. I was working at a frozen yogurt place.
- sidewndr46 5mo agohttps://www.baltimoresun.com/2005/03/08/a-tale-of-customer-service-justice-and-currency-as-funny-as-a-2-bill/ https://www.baltimoresun.com/2005/03/08/a-tale-of-customer-s...
- IAmBroom 5mo agoThere's a legendary Reddit story about such an incident at Taco Bell's. Ignorance is not a rare trait.
- dennis_jeeves2 5mo agoMoral of the story: 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
- 4748494949 5mo ago[dead]
- IAmBroom 5mo agoThe US does not pay its bills with printed cash. 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.
- einhard 5mo agoThis was an interesting read. I am somewhat reminded of J. S. G. Boggs (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._S._G._Boggs https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._S._G._Boggs), who used to hand draw banknotes and bills as a performance art of sort. There is an excellent book about him by Lawrence Weschler called _Boggs: A Comedy of Values_.
- tedggh 5mo agoThe Frank Bourassa story is pretty incredible. There’s a TV series but I recommend listening to his interviews. I think NPR has one that is pretty good. The level of planning, logistics and craft the guy put into his illegal money printing shop is admirable. Extremely intelligent and driven person. He could have succeeded in any other legal business if wanted to, but looks like it would not be the same thrill for him. His counterfeit US bills were so good that allegedly some of it is still in circulation with silent approval of the US government.
- sandworm101 5mo agoThe other side of the trade: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superdollar https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superdollar 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.
- fnord77 5mo agoCrime paid modestly and then a jackpot for the movie rights
- ck2 5mo agoMeanwhile on TV now there are real, serious, expensive advertisements selling a 50 cent roll of pennies for TEN DOLLARS Whatever legal business we are in otherwise, apparently it's the wrong one
- hristov 5mo agoSlightly off topic, Vladimir Nabakov wrote a beautiful, sad story about a guy like this -- a lonely counterfeiter that made a small number of individually crafted bills. It is called The Leonardo.
- deleted 5mo ago[deleted]