Kirkus Reviews QR Code
MONEY OF THEIR OWN by Murray Teigh Bloom

MONEY OF THEIR OWN

By

Pub Date: July 12th, 1957
Publisher: Scribner

A gallery of rogues embodies the author's hobby -- counterfeiting and its practitioners -- and provides a collection of ""coney"" men from the mid 1800's to the distribution by Nazi Germany of bogus Bank of England notes. Working through the International Criminal Police Commission and interviewing, where possible, these unofficial money makers, Bloom runs through the ways in which they produced their illegal tender, their methods of passing it and the means by which they were caught. From the U. S. and Europe come these exploits in high finance, with two cases involving stamps and philatelic forgeries, which include Beraha, whose gold sovereigns were more valuable than those of the Royal Mint; Reis, whose operations in Portugal upset the whole country; Jacobs, whose cigar business was a disguise for a mastermind of currency crimes; Prince Ludwig of Austria and the long-lived Brockway. There's peripheral history to supplement the stories of this craft group which has its own place in the annals of true crime. Definitely lively.