Outline of forgery

Types of forgery

• Archaeological forgery
• Art forgery
• Black propaganda — false information and material that purports to be from a source on one side of a conflict, but is actually from the opposing side
• Counterfeiting
• * Counterfeit money — types of counterfeit coin include the cliché forgery, the fourrée and the slug
• * Counterfeit consumer goods
• * Counterfeit medication
• * Counterfeit watches
• * Unapproved aircraft parts
• * Watered stock
• False documents
• Forgery as covert operation
• Identity document forgery
• * Fake passport
• Literary forgery
• * Fake memoirs
• * Pseudopigraphy — the false attribution of a work, not always as an act of forgery
• Musical forgery — music allegedly written by composers of past eras, but actually composed later by someone else
• Philatelic forgery — fake stamps produced to defraud stamp collecters
• Signature forgery

  Legality of forgery

United Kingdom

• Forgery of Foreign Bills Act 1803
• Forgery Act 1830
• Forgery, Abolition of Punishment of Death Act 1832
• Forgery Act 1837
• Forgery Act 1861
• Forgery Act 1870
• Forgery Act 1913
• Forgery and Counterfeiting Act 1981

  International

• Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement
• Council of Europe Convention on the Counterfeiting of Medical Products

  Related offences

• Phishing — impersonating a reputable organization via electronic media, which often involves creating a replica of a trustworthy website
• Uttering — knowingly passing on a forgery with the intent to defraud

  Detection and prevention of forgery

Anti-counterfeiting agencies and organisations

• Applied DNA Sciences — an American company that develops DNA-based technology to help identify counterfeit goods
• Authentics Foundation - an international non-governmental organization that raises public awareness of counterfeits
• Central Bank Counterfeit Deterrence Group — an international group of central banks that investigates emerging threats to the security of banknotes
• Counterfeit Coin Bulletin — a now-defunct publication of the American Numismatic Association
• International Federation of Spirits Producers — the trade association for the worldwide spirit industry's protection against counterfeit produce
• Philatelic Foundation — a major source of authentication of rare and valuable postage stamps
• United States Secret Service — the agency responsible for the prevention and investigation of counterfeit U.S. currency
• Verified-Accredited Wholesale Distributors — a program that offers accreditation to wholesale pharmaceutical distribution facilities

  Tools and techniques

• Authentication - the act of confirming the truth of an attribute of a single piece of data claimed true by an entity.
• Counterfeit banknote detection pen — uses an iodine-based ink that reacts with the starch found in counterfeit banknotes
• EURion constellation — a pattern of symbols incorporated into banknote designs, which can be detected by imaging software
• Geometric lathe — a 19th-century lathe used for making ornamental patterns on the plates used in printing banknotes and stamps
• Microprinting - very small text hidden on banknotes or cheques, that is difficult to accurately reproduce
• Optical variable device — an iridescent image that cannot be photocopied or scanned
• Optically variable ink — ink that appears to change color depending on the angle it is viewed from
• Philatelic expertisation — the process whereby an expert is asked to give an opinion whether a philatelic item is genuine
• Questioned document examination — a forensic science discipline that attempts to answer questions about disputed documents
• Security printing — the field of the printing industry that deals with the printing of items such as banknotes and identity documents
• Security thread — a thin ribbon threaded through a banknote, that appears as a solid line when held up to the light
• Taggant — a radio frequency microchip that can be tracked and identified
• Watermark — a recognizable image or pattern in paper that appears as various shades of lightness when viewed

  Examples of forgery

Archaeological forgery

• Acámbaro figures — over 32,000 ceramic figurines which appear to provide evidence for the co-existence of dinosaurs and humans
• Archaeoraptor — the supposed "missing link" between birds and tetrapod dinosaurs; constructed by rearranging pieces of genuine fossils
• AVM Runestone — a student prank that was believed to be an ancient Norse runestone
• Beringer's Lying Stones — fake fossils that were planted as an 18th-century prank
• Brandenburg stone — a stone slab bearing markings which appear to be letters of an unknown alphabet
• Calaveras Skull — a human skull that was thought to prove the existence of Pliocene-age man in North America
• Cardiff Giant — a ten-foot-tall "petrified man" carved out of gypsum
• Chiemsee Cauldron — a golden cauldron found at the bottom of a lake
• Crystal skull — a series of artifacts crafted from quartz, often attributed to Aztec or Mayan civilizations
• Drake's Plate of Brass — supposedly a brass plaque planted by Francis Drake upon arrival in America, but a practical joke that span out of control
• Grave Creek Stone — a small sandstone disk inscribed with twenty-five pseudo-alphabetical characters
• Holly Oak gorget — a mammoth engraved upon a shell pendant
• Ica stones — a collection of andesite stones that depict dinosaurs co-existing with humans
• Japanese Paleolithic hoax — many paleolithic finds manufactured by amateur archaeologist Shinichi Fujimura to bolster his reputation
• Kafkania pebble — a small rounded pebble bearing what could be an early example of Greek syllabic writing
• Kinderhook plates — six bell-shaped pieces of brass with strange engravings; Latter-Day Saints founder Joseph Smith allegedly attempted to translate them
• Lead Books of Sacromonte — a series of texts inscribed on circular lead leaves, denounced as heretical forgeries by the Vatican in 1682; modern scholars concur with this analysis
• Lenape Stone — an engraving that appears to show Native Americans hunting a woolly mammoth
• Michigan relics — artifacts that appear to prove that East Europeans lived in Michigan in ancient times; a money-making scam
• The inscription at Pedra da Gávea — allegedly carved by Phoenicians, who were not thought to have had the naval capacity to travel across the ocean to Brazil
• Persian Princess — the mummified body of a "Persian princess"; the corpse of a woman who was murdered around 1996
• Piltdown Man — the jaw of an orangutan attached to the skull of a human, hailed as the missing link between humans and apes
• Sherborne Bone — a bone with a horse's head engraved on it, now known to be a schoolboy prank
• Solid Muldoon — a "petrified human" made out of the mortar, rock dust, clay, plaster, ground bones, blood, and meat
• Spirit Pond runestones — small stones bearing runic inscriptions, ostensibly of pre-Columbian origin
• Tiara of Saitaferne — a tiara exhibited at the Louvre Museum as belonging to a Scythian king, until this statement was disputed by the goldsmith who created it

  Art forgery

• Amarna Princess — a statue created by Shaun Greenhalgh in the ancient Egyptian style, and sold to Bolton Museum for £439,767
• Black Admiral — a Revolutionary War-era painting of a black man in a naval uniform
• Bust of Flora — a bust of the Roman goddess Flora, previously believed to be a work by Leonardo da Vinci, now attributed to Richard Cockle Lucas.
• Camille Corot forgeries — thousands of imitation Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot paintings
• Eadred Reliquary — a silver vessel created by Shaun Greenhalgh, containing a piece of wood which he claimed was a fragment of the True Cross
• Etruscan terracotta warriors — three terracotta warriors created by Italian forgers and sold to the Metropolitan Museum of Art
• The Faun — a sculpture created by Shaun Greenhalgh and sold as a work by Paul Gauguin
• Flower portrait — a portrait of William Shakespeare, probably painted in the 19th century
• Michelangelo's Cupid — a sleeping Cupid sculpture that was created, artificially aged and sold by Renaissance artist Michelangelo
• Risley Park Lanx — the replica of a genuine Roman artifact, "discovered" by the Greenhalgh family and put on display at the British Museum
• Rospigliosi Cup — a gold and enamel cup thought to have been crafted by Italian goldsmith Benvenuto Cellini, but now considered a 19th-century forgery
• The works of the Spanish Forger — an unidentified 19th-century artist who created over 200 medieval miniatures, which are still highly valued by collectors

  Black propaganda

• The Franklin Prophecy — an anti-Semitic speech falsely attributed to Benjamin Franklin, arguing against the admittance of Jewish immigrants to the newly formed United States
• Morey letter — a letter published during the 1880 US presidential elections, suggesting that James A. Garfield was in favor of Chinese immigration
• Our Race Will Rule Undisputed Over The World — a speech given by the non-existent Rabbi Emanuel Rabinovich, outlining Jewish plans for world domination
• A Protocol of 1919 — a document supposedly found among the belongings of a Jew killed in battle, outlining Jewish plans for world domination
• The Protocols of the Elders of Zion — a lengthy text, originating in Russia and widely publicized by the Nazi party, outlining Jewish plans for world domination
• A Radical Program for the Twentieth Century — a text supposedly written by a British Jewish Communist, cited as proof that the civil rights movement in America was a foreign Communist plot
• Tanaka Memorial — an alleged Japanese strategic planning document, advising Emperor Hirohito on how to conquer the world

  Counterfeiting

• 2012 Pakistan fake medicine crisis — a batch of counterfeit medicine that killed over 100 heart patients at a hospital in Punjab
• Counterfeit United States currency — some notable examples of counterfeit operations
• Fake Indian Currency Note — fake currency in circulation in the Indian economy
• Operation Bernhard — a Nazi plot to destabilize the British economy by dropping counterfeit notes out of aircraft
• Superdollar — a very high-quality counterfeit the United States hundred dollar bill
• Partnair Flight 394 — a chartered flight that crashed in 1989, killing all 55 people on board; it was caused by counterfeit aircraft parts
• Unauthorized Apple Stores in China — twenty-two unauthorized Apple Stores discovered in Kunming

  Forged documents

• Canuck letter — a letter implying that a Democratic presidential candidate was prejudiced against French-Canadians
• Casket letters — letters and sonnets supposedly written by Mary, Queen of Scots, implicating her in the murder of her husband
• Donation of Constantine — a decree issued by emperor Constantine I, granting authority over Rome and part of the Roman Empire to Pope Sylvester I and his successors
• Dossiers Secrets — documents, planted in the National Library of France, that were used as the basis for a series of BBC documentaries
• Habbush letter — a letter linking Saddam Hussein to al-Qaeda and the 9/11 attacks
• Killian documents — memos critical of President George W. Bush's service in the National Guard
• Larmenius Charter — a Latin manuscript listing twenty-two successive Grand Masters of the Knights Templar
• Lindsay pamphlet scandal — pamphlets distributed by the Australian Liberal Party, claiming an alliance between the Labor Party and an Islamic organization
• Mustafa-letter — a letter used by Norway's Liberal Party to prove that the country was in danger of being overrun with Muslims
• Niger uranium forgeries — documents implying that Saddam Hussein had attempted to purchase yellowcake uranium powder, allegedly to build weapons of mass destruction
• Oath of a Freeman — a copy of the loyalty oath drawn up by 17th-century Pilgrims
• Privilegium Maius — a medieval manuscript boosting the legitimacy and influence of the House of Habsburg
• Pseudo-Isidorian Decretals — letters and canons purportedly authored by early popes, including a collection authored by "Benedict Levita".
• William Lynch speech — a speech by an 18th-century slave owner, who claims to have discovered the secret of controlling slaves by pitting them against each other
• Zeno map — a map of the North Atlantic containing many non-existent islands
• Zinoviev letter — a directive from Moscow to Britain's Communist Party, calling for intensified communist agitation; the letter contributed to the downfall of Prime Minister MacDonald

  Literary forgery

• The Aquarian Gospel of Jesus the Christ — a religious text supposedly transcribed from the Akashic records
• The Archko Volume — a series of supposedly contemporary reports relating to the life and death of Jesus
• Autobiography of Howard Hughes — an "autobiography" of reclusive eccentric Howard Hughes, written without his knowledge or consent
• Book of Jasher — an alternative account of the Old Testament narrative
• Book of Veles — a set of Slavic texts written on wooden planks
• Centrum Naturae Concentratum — a 17th-century alchemical text
• Christine — a compilation of letters purportedly written by an English girl studying in Germany in 1914, before the outbreak of war
• Chronicle of Huru — supposedly an official chronicle of the medieval Moldavian court
• Chronicon of Pseudo-Dexter — a 15th-century account of the Church's activities in Spain, attributed to Flavius Dexter
• De Situ Britanniae — an 18th-century forgery represented as a Roman account of ancient Britain
• Epistle to the Alexandrians — an unknown text derided as a forgery in a 7th-century manuscript
• Epistle to the Laodiceans — a lost letter of Saint Paul, often "rediscovered" by forgers
• Essene Gospel of Peace — a text which claims, among other things, that Jesus was a vegetarian
• Gospel of Josephus — a forgery created to raise publicity for a novel
• Historias de la Conquista del Mayab — a Mexican manuscript supposedly written by an 18th-century monk
• History of the Captivity in Babylon — an ostensibly Old Testament text elaborating on the Book of Jeremiah
• Hitler Diaries — a set of volumes purported to be the diaries of Adolf Hitler, serialized in the German magazine Stern and the British Sunday Times
• Ireland Shakespeare forgeries — forged correspondence between Shakespeare and his contemporaries, and a "lost play" entitled Vortigern and Rowena
• Jack the Ripper Diary — the forged diary of Victorian merchant James Maybrick, apparently revealing him to be Jack the Ripper
• Letter of Benan — the letter of an Egyptian physician describing his encounters with Jesus
• Letter to an Anti-Zionist Friend — a letter in support of Zionism, attributed to Martin Luther King, Jr.
• The Lost Chapter of the Acts of the Apostles — the "missing" 29th chapter of the Acts of the Apostles
• Memoirs Of Mr. Hempher, The British Spy To The Middle East — a document purporting to be the account of an 18th-century secret agent, describing his role in founding the Islamic reform movement of Wahhabism
• Manuscripts of Dvůr Králové and Zelená Hora — fraudulent Slavic manuscripts created in the early 19th century
• Minuscule 2427 — a minuscule manuscript of the Gospel of Mark
• Mussolini diaries — several forged diaries supposedly written by the Italian dictator Benito Mussolini
• My Sister and I — an autobiographical work attributed to the philosopher Nietzsche, containing a probably fictional account of his incestuous relationship with his sister
• — a New Age bible written by an American dentist
• Ossianic poems — a cycle of epic poems published by the Scottish poet James Macpherson, attributed to the legendary Ossian
• Roxburghe Ballads — over a thousand 17th-century ballads published by John Payne Collier, some of which he had written himself
• Salamander Letter — a document that offers an alternative account of Joseph Smith's finding of the Book of Mormon.
• Sixth and Seventh Books of Moses — a magical text supposedly written by Moses, providing instructions on how to perform the miracles portrayed in the Bible
• The Songs of Bilitis — a collection of erotic poetry allegedly found on the walls of a tomb in Cyprus
• Supplements to the Satyricon — several forged versions of the Latin novel Satyricon
• Talmud Jmmanuel — a supposedly ancient Aramaic text suggesting an extraterrestrial origin for the Bible
• The Zohar — a primary text of medieval Kabbalah, written by a 16th-century Spanish Rabbi but attributed to Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai, an ancient sage of the Second Temple period

  Musical forgery

• Adélaïde Concerto — a violin concerto attributed to Mozart

  Philatelic forgery

• Russian philatelic forgeries — some examples of notable Russian stamp forgeries
• Stock Exchange Forgery 1872-73 — a fraud perpetrated by telegraph clerks at the London Stock Exchange
• Turner Collection of Forgeries — a collection of forged postage stamps on display at the British Library

  Forgery controversies

• Augustan History — a collection of biographies of Roman emperors
• Bat Creek inscription — an inscription on a stone allegedly found in a Native American burial mound
• Isleworth Mona Lisa — a close imitation of da Vinci's Mona Lisa, sometimes attributed in part to da Vinci
• James Ossuary — a chalk box used to contain the bones of the dead, bearing the inscription "James, son of Joseph, brother of Jesus"
• Jehoash Inscription — an inscription confirming the Biblical account of the repairs made to the temple in Jerusalem by Jehoash
• Jordan Lead Codices — a series of ring-bound books of lead and copper, that are said to pre-date the writings of St. Paul
• Kensington Runestone — a slab of greywacke covered in Scandinavian runes, found in North America and supposedly carved in the 14th century
• Letter of Lentulus — an epistle allegedly written by a Roman Consul, giving a physical description of Jesus
• Majestic 12 documents — supposedly leaked papers relating to the formation, in 1947, of a secret committee of US officials to investigate the Roswell incident
• Mar Saba letter — an epistle, attributed to Clement of Alexandria, discussing the Secret Gospel of Mark
• The Memoirs of Naim Bey — a collection of telegrams indicating that the Armenian Genocide was formally implemented as Ottoman Empire policy
• Newark Holy Stones — a set of artifacts allegedly discovered among a group of ancient Indian burial grounds
• Old High German lullaby — a supposedly 10th-century poem containing numerous references to Germanic mythology
• Prophecy of the Popes — a series of 112 short cryptic phrases which purport to predict future Roman Catholic Popes
• Shroud of Turin — a linen cloth that is said to be the burial shroud of Jesus, and bears the image of a man who appears to have suffered injuries consistent with crucifixion
• Sinaia lead plates — a set of lead plates written in an unknown language
• Sisson documents — sixty-eight Russian documents which claim that Trotsky and Lenin were German agents attempting to bring about Russia's withdrawal from World War I
• Stalin's alleged speech of 19 August 1939 — a speech supposedly given by Joseph Stalin in which he stated that the approaching war would benefit the Soviet Union
• Titulus Crucis — a piece of wood, ostensibly a fragment of the True Cross upon which Jesus was crucified
• US Army Field Manual 30-31B — a text purporting to be a classified appendix of a US Army Field Manual which describes top-secret counter-insurgency tactics
• Vinland map — an allegedly 15th-century map of the world, which could be the earliest map to depict America

• Bords de la Seine à Argenteuil — an oil painting by Monet
• Glozel artifacts — over three thousand artifacts dating back to the Neolithic era, discovered in a small French hamlet
• Lady of Elche — a stone bust believed to have been carved by the Iberians
• Praeneste fibula — a golden brooch bearing an inscription in Old Latin

  Notable forgers

Archaeological forgers

• Charles Dawson — "discoverer" of the Piltdown Man
• Shinichi Fujimura
• Oded Golan — accused of forging the James Ossuary, among other things; he was acquitted of these charges in March 2012
• Islam Akhun
• Brigido Lara
• Moses Shapira

  Art forgers

• Giovanni Bastianini
• William Blundell
• Chang Dai-chien
• Yves Chaudron
• Alceo Dossena
• John Drewe
• Kenneth Fetterman
• Alfredo Fioravanti
• Shaun Greenhalgh — described by the Metropolitan Police as "the most diverse art forger known in history"
• Guy Hain
• Eric Hebborn
• Elmyr de Hory — subject of the Orson Welles documentary F for Fake
• Geert Jan Jansen
• Tom Keating
• Konrad Kujau — the author of the Hitler Diaries
• Mark A. Landis
• Lothar Malskat
• Han van Meegeren — estimated to have earned the equivalent of over thirty million dollars for his forgeries
• Jacques van Meegeren
• John Myatt
• Sámuel Literáti Nemes
• Edmé Samson
• Ely Sakhai
• Jean-Pierre Schecroun
• Émile Schuffenecker
• Karl Sim
• David Stein
• Tony Tetro
• Robert Thwaites
• Franz Tieze
• William J. Toye
• Eduardo de Valfierno — allegedly masterminded the 1911 theft of the Mona Lisa
• Kenneth Walton — author of the memoir
• E. M. Washington
• Theo van Wijngaarden

  Counterfeiters

• Philip Alston
• Anatasios Arnaouti
• Trevor Ashmore
• Robert Baudin
• Charles Black
• William Booth
• Mary Butterworth
• William Chaloner
• Louis Colavecchio
• The Cragg Vale Coiners
• Thomas Dangerfield
• Mike DeBardeleben
• John Duff
• Edward Emery
• David Farnsworth
• Bernhard Krüger — director of the Nazi counterfeiting plot codenamed Operation Bernhard
• Ignazio Lupo
• Catherine Murphy — the last woman to be executed by burning.
• Emanuel Ninger
• Bernard von NotHaus — inventor of the Liberty Dollar
• Salomon Smolianoff — WWII concentration camp detainee and key figure in Operation Bernhard
• Samuel C. Upham
• Arthur Williams

  Document forgers

• Frank Abagnale — subject of the film Catch Me If You Can
• Charles Bertram — author of De Situ Britanniae
• Joseph Cosey
• Przybysław Dyjamentowski
• Michael John Hamdani
• Adolfo Kaminsky
• Jean LaBanta
• Maharaja Nandakumar
• Richard Pigott
• Piligrim
• James Reavis
• Alves dos Reis
• Scott Reuben
• William Roupell
• William Wynne Ryland
• Michael Sabo
• Alexander Howland Smith
• Robert Spring
• Adolf Ludvig Stierneld
• Brita Tott
• Lucio Urtubia
• Denis Vrain-Lucas
• Henry Woodhouse

  Literary forgers

• Annio da Viterbo
• Sir Edmund Backhouse, 2nd Baronet
• Adémar de Chabannes
• Thomas Chatterton
• Mark Hofmann — forger of several documents relating to the Latter Day Saint movement, including the Salamander letter
• William Henry Ireland — author of the Ireland Shakespeare forgeries and the pseudepigraphical play Vortigern and Rowena
• Clifford Irving
• William Lauder
• James Macpherson — the supposed "translator" of the Ossianic poems
• Iolo Morganwg
• François Nodot
• Francesco Maria Pratilli
• Constantine Simonides
• Clotilde de Surville
• Charles Weisberg

  Musical forgers

• Henri Casadesus
• Marius Casadesus — creator of the Adélaïde Concerto
• François-Joseph Fétis
• Fritz Kreisler
• Winfried Michel
• David Popper
• Roman Turovsky-Savchuk
• Vladimir Vavilov
• Voller Brothers

  Signature forgers

• Henry Fauntleroy
• James Townsend Saward

  Stamp forgers

• A. Alisaffi
• Bernhardt Assmus
• Rainer Blüm
• Delandre
• Georges Fouré
• François Fournier
• Sigmund Friedl
• Julius Goldner
• N. Imperato
• Madame Joseph
• Louis-Henri Mercier
• Erasmo Oneglia
• Adolph Otto
• Angelo Panelli
• Oswald Schroeder
• Lucian Smeets
• Jean de Sperati
• Philip Spiro
• Béla Székula
• Raoul de Thuin
• Harold Treherne

  Media

• The Art of the Faker — a book about art forgery by Frank Arnau
• The Counterfeiters — a movie inspired by the Nazi counterfeiting scheme, Operation Bernhard
• F for Fake — an Orson Welles documentary about art forger Elmyr de Hory
• Fake Britain — a BBC television series about counterfeiting and its effects on consumers
• ' — a memoir by art forger Kenneth Walton
• Fake or Fortune? — a BBC television series which examines the provenance of notable artworks
• ' — a book by Kenneth L. Feder on the topic of pseudoarcheology
• Pierre Grassou — a novel by Honoré de Balzac about a fictional art forger
• Selling Hitler — an ITV drama-documentary about the Hitler Diaries