Unexplained Counterfeiter

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31169, 20 September 1966, Page 16

Unexplained Counterfeiter

(N.Z. Press Association) AUCKLAND, Sept. 19. A forger whose motives are baffling Auckland bankers and coin collectors is making counterfeit pennies and putting them in circulation.

The coins, which are about half the thickness of a normal penny and slightly smaller, have been spotted recently by several Auckland collectors.

They have been described as poor imitations, but the fact that they are being circulated proves that they are good enough to fool most people—even the banks. After inspecting one of the

coins, a_ Reserve Bank spokesman said today that they could quite easily slip through banking channels unnoticed. “But this is definitely a counterfeit coin, and not one that we would pay out on,” he said. “I cannot understand why they are being circulated.”

' He said that apart from poor reproduction, the marking on the penny had no obvious defects.

“If the forger had wanted to make a lot of money, he would have altered the coin in some way so as to make it valuable to collectors,” he said. But an Auckland collector,

Mr J. Roberts, of Westmere, who owns one of the coins, has another theory. He believes that the forger will not stop at pennies, but will eventually start producing larger denominations. “This is the way these people work,” he said. “They start on the smaller coins to see if they will get through. “Once they find that they are accepted by the public, then they begin circulating silver.”