The E-Sylum:  Volume 7, Number 2, January 11, 2004, Article 14

BECKER VS BECKER

  Regarding last week's reference to Becker the Counterfeiter,
  Bob Leonard writes: "Oops!  Here you have confused Carl
  Wilhelm Becker, 1772-1830, the German counterfeiter of
  ancient, medieval, and German coins, and the subject of Sir
  George Hill's Becker the Counterfeiter, with Peter Rosa,
  operator of the Becker Manufacturing Company 1955-1990,
  covered in some detail in Wayne Sayles' Classical Deception.
  Pieces marked BECKER were signed by Rosa, not Becker
  (Sayles, p. 86), though Sayles says he always marked them
  on the edge, not the face.  (The catalog description is unclear
  as to whether the markings are on the edge or not.)  But
  possibly there was another counterfeiter appropriating the
  Becker name."

  [It doesn't take much to confuse your Editor.  The 1804 date
  of the replica U.S. cent overlapped the timeframe of the
  German Becker, so I didn't question it.  But Bob's Leonard's
  attribution to the 1955-1990 period makes more sense for
  a copy of this coin, which may have had a collector
  premium before 1830, but probably not enough of one to
  justify the effort of making a replica. -Editor]

  Wayne Homren, Editor

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