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COUNTERFEITING AND MORMON MURDERSSome strange coins (and banknotes) are out-and-out fakes. Readers may be interested in a new three-part Netflix series on Mark Hofmann and the 1985 Utah pipe bombings called "Murder Among The Mormons". Here's an excerpt from a Wall Street Journal article. -Editor
On Oct. 15, 1985, the pipe bombs started going off around Salt Lake City. The first victim was Steven Christensen, a financial consultant and collector of antiquities, who died at the door of his downtown office. The second was Kathy Sheets, who was killed at her suburban home by a device intended for her husband, J. Gary Sheets, a business associate of Christensen. The presumption, by both police and Sheets, was that "disgruntled investors" were behind the gruesome murders. But that theory exploded the next day, as did a car driven by a well-known documents dealer named Mark Hofmann. Inside his bombed-out blue Toyota was a badly damaged Hofmann and a trove of purportedly rare Mormon papers and books, now charred and scattering in the breeze. They were intended for sale to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints itself. Suddenly, the case wasn't about finance and revenge. The church was involved. And the motives were unknown. "Murder Among the Mormons," a tautly constructed, three-part Netflix Original produced by BBC Studios, is about a fairly well-known case. But the series' creators take such pains to make their story a mystery that this reviewer's inclination is not to spoil a thing. An E-Sylum reader notes: "Alvin Rust is shown often and a young Hofmann is shown holding a letter from the Mint relating to the 1959 wheat reverse cent. Guessing it's faked and you have to freeze frame to read. The show just talks generally about him altering coins." Hofmann was an amazingly talented counterfeiter, creating expert-fooling documents, paper money and coins together with convincingly-believable, accurately-researched but fabricated stories of their origin and discovery. He got away with it for some time, roping in even Alvin Rust, Utah dealer and author of a book on early Mormon paper money. Rust spoke about his experience at an ANA convention one year. Hofmann's coin forgery is examined in Chuck Larsen's 2004 book, Numismatic Forgery. The Introduction illustrates the famous "1959-D Wheat Cent". -Editor
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Wayne Homren, Editor The Numismatic Bibliomania Society is a non-profit organization promoting numismatic literature. See our web site at coinbooks.org. To submit items for publication in The E-Sylum, write to the Editor at this address: whomren@gmail.com To subscribe go to: https://my.binhost.com/lists/listinfo/esylum All Rights Reserved. NBS Home Page Contact the NBS webmaster |