Outline of forgery

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The following outline is provided as an overview and topical guide to forgery:

Forgery – process of making, adapting, or imitating objects, statistics, or documents with the intent to deceive.

Types of forgery[edit]

Legality of forgery[edit]

Kenya[edit]

International[edit]

Related offences[edit]

  • 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[edit]

Anti-counterfeiting agencies and organisations[edit]

Tools and techniques[edit]

  • Authentication — the act of confirming the truth of an attribute of a single piece of data claimed to be 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 on 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[edit]

Archaeological forgery[edit]

  • 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 spun 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
  • Vinland map — an allegedly 15th-century map of the world, which would have been be the earliest map to depict America (or "Vinland")

Art forgery[edit]

  • 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[edit]

  • 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[edit]

Forged documents[edit]

  • 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[edit]

Musical forgery[edit]

Philatelic forgery[edit]

Forgery controversies[edit]

The authenticity of certain documents and artifacts has not yet been determined and is still the subject of debate.

  • 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
  • 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

Some documents and artifacts were previously thought to be forgeries, but have subsequently been determined to be genuine.

Notable forgers[edit]

Archaeological forgers[edit]

Art forgers[edit]

Counterfeiters[edit]

Document forgers[edit]

Literary forgers[edit]

Musical forgers[edit]

Signature forgers[edit]

Stamp forgers[edit]

For a more comprehensive list, see List of stamp forgers.

Media[edit]

External links[edit]

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