COUNTERFEIT

But evil men and seducers shall wax worse and worse, deceiving, and being deceived.

—II Tim 3:13

862 Trends In Counterfeiting

According to The Nation’s Business some $23 million in counterfeit money was seized in the United States during fiscal 1972.

The article pointed out that the modern counterfeiter appears willing to take greater risks in order to make greater profits. Secret Service Director James J. Rowley said the present counterfeiter “now deals directly with more people upon whom he has collected less background data than the counterfeiter of the past.”

—Bible Expositor

863 Counterfeit And Copying Machine

A woman arrested for passing forged banknotes used an electrostatic copier in her office, the daily paper Aftonbladet reported in Stockholm.

It said the machine capable of churning out 9,000 near-perfect bills a minute—could be used for forgery because the Swedish 1,000-crown ($240) note was printed entirely in black.

864 $2 Million Fine

A California superior court jury awarded Irving Mansfield, widower of the late novelist Jacqueline Susann, $2 million damages from 20th Century Fox in a suit over the movie, “Beyond the Valley Of The Dolls.”

The suit was filed by Miss Susann, who had died of cancer, and Mansfield on the basis of asserted unfair competition in connection with an earlier movie, “Valley Of The Dolls,” from a novel by Miss Susann.

“Valley Of The Dolls” grossed more than $30 million according to the suit, and “Beyond The Valley Of The Dolls,” not a Susann product, allegedly exploited her success to gross more than $20 million.

The studio, it was charged, did not take “reasonable” steps to disassociate the second film from Miss Susann, and that’s the way the jury of seven women and five men saw it.

865 Another Elvis Presley

From the United Press International in London, Elvis Presley is about to make his British debut—strumming his guitar and belting out rock-and-roll songs at a factory canteen. But it’s not the Elvis Presley of “Love Me Tender” fame who died in 1977. This one is a 35-year-old Burmese immigrant.

His name was Narinder Singh until he had it legally changed to Elvis Presley. “I thought it would help my career as a performer,” Singh, or Presley, said.

866 Change Of Mind Hurts

At Park Rapids, Minnesota, a tramp walked into a restaurant and asked the proprietor for a free meal. The hobo looked so hungry and bedraggled that the sympathetic restaurant man said, “O. K., what’ll yuh have?” The tramp sat down at a table and had a good meal, a first-class handout.

As the hobo was leaving, he walked up to the proprietor and even bummed a cigarette. He fished in a pocket for a match and along with the match he carelessly put out a twenty-dollar bill.

“Say, what’s that,” shouted the proprietor. “You come in here bumming a meal, and you’ve got twenty bucks.” And he grabbed the banknote.

“But this was supposed to be a free meal,” the hobo protested.

“Not on your life,” restaurant man. “I’ll just take thirty-five cents out of this twenty.”

“Just remember, buddy,” said the tramp. “I don’t want you to do this; I’m not asking you.”

“Is zat so,” responded the restaurant man, and he handed the hobo nineteen dollars and sixty-five cents in charge.

The unhappy ending of the story is that when the proprietor took the money to the bank he found that the twenty-dollar bill he had taken from the hobo was counterfeit.

867 $100,000 Bills

New Orleans, Louisiana—John R. Stark, a souvenir vendor, has beat federal counterfeiting charges and can go on selling his oversized $100,000-dollar bills.

“The little guy won,” says Stark, who claims to have printed more than 100 million dollars in imitation currency. He calls himself “the second largest money manufacturer in America.”

His money comes in two sizes—two and four times the size of the original bill—and is laminated onto a wooden plague. Denominations range from two to 100,000 dollars, and none of it is spendable.

“Nonetheless, they arrested me, took me off in handcuffs in front of my children and charged me with counterfeiting,” Stark says. They also seized his plaques.

According to federal law, black-and-white photographs of money may be published in books for educational and historical purposes if the reproduction size is less than three-quarters the size of the bill or more than 1½ times its size. The law is designed to prevent counterfeiting.

After much negotiation, the US secret service agreed to let Stark sell his plaques if he would glue a leaflet to the back and put a wrapper around each like a money band. The wrapper would make the plaques qualify as books. Stark says he would agree to the conditions.

—Associated Press

See also: Deceit ; Honesty ; Money.