by Risa Wolf

Created on: October 06, 2010   Last Updated: October 09, 2010

Forgeries and frauds have been part of the social fabric as far back as human records can be traced.Across the centuries, every time techniques to prevent frauds through forgeries are put into effect, someone figures out how to get around the preventive techniques. This was true in the fourth millennium BCE; it is still true today. In fact, writing originally was invented to prevent commercial fraud. The primary motive for committing frauds is greed; however, the psychological make up of literary and antiquities forgers is more complex.

We should bear in mind that the sale of antiquities alone is a billion dollar a year business. So many artifacts change hands, sometimes for millions of dollars for a single item, that it is easy to understand why forgery of antiquities and literary documents normally involves more people than the lone con man selling a fake gold watch. Quite often, because of the large amounts of monies involved, an artifact is manufactured specifically for a targeted customer – whether for a collector or a museum.

Both literary and antiquities forgeries require a manufacturer, an authenticator, a publicist, and a commercial outlet. There have been exceptions to this need for a gang. One of the more famous one-man literary forgers still raises eyebrows in disbelief. In the middle of the nineteenth century, a Frenchman named Vrain Lucas manufactured more than 27,000 documents for an unusually gullible client. Among others, these documents included letters written by Pontius Pilate, Alexander the Great, Cleopatra, Mary Magdelene, Ovid, Luther, Dante, and even Shakespeare–all written in Modern French!

♦ The Motives of a forger:

The motives behind forgeries of wills or checks or paintings or famous signatures are for gain and need no further explanation; neither do those made out of hate and spite. The motives of  the political forger are obvious: disinformation. In general, literary and antiquities forgeries are motivated by greed. Nevertheless, both literary and antiquities frauds have been committed, and not necessarily for profit, but because of a quirky psychological make-up.

♦ The psychological quirk:

Quite often, literary forgers like to play the part of an omniscient creator. These forgers tend to “correct” the words in a famous work to make it read what the forger thinks it should read. They have been known to insert “missing” lines in a play, create previously unknown works, and

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