Books and bidders

by A. S. W. Rosenbach

Forgeries have been in existence as long as the collecting game itself. During the Renaissance forgers were very active in every field of creative art. Not only did they make imitations of great Greek and Latin classics, which were just beginning their popular vogue in Europe, but they very cleverly copied old medals, and fabricated old gems too. Of course, the collector himself is in a sense morally responsible for the forger. The collector’s overdeveloped sense of acquisitiveness leads him to pay extravagant prices for his favorites; he will search out and buy every available pen scratch of some great writer.

A poor wretch in an attic reads in the newspapers that a capitalist has just paid $2000 for an autograph letter of Robert Burns. He then begins to “discover” other letters and documents by the same author. This is the launching of a career that is usually full of excitement and gives full scope to the imagination. The forger is a picturesque figure until he, too, is discovered and publicly condemned. This class of men—I know of no women forgers—is responsible for the literary detective. There is real sport in tracking these fabrications. An ability to tell the original from the false, the genuine from the spurious, sometimes under the most trying circumstances, has developed almost into a fine art.

There are men who make literary detecting their profession. Their eyes are so well trained that they are seldom wrong when pronouncing judgment. They are as fully aware of the thousand and one tricks of the professional forger’s game as they are alert to the peculiarities of each author’s handwriting.

These experts could be numbered on the fingers of one hand. When you stop to consider that there are men even now in dark holes in London, in obscure garrets in Paris, in flats in Harlem, and in apartments in Atlantic City, making their livelihood forging autographs, it puts you pleasantly on your guard. These fellows are very often unsuccessful authors with a certain amount of erudition, broken-down booksellers, or other bits of riffraff from the literary world. I once knew a genial old college professor who turned from unlucrative teaching to make an honest penny, as he termed it, by forging.

My uncle Moses always told with a chuckle of his experience with an Englishman by the name of Robert Spring. He called at my uncle’s shop in Commerce Street one day in the 60’s and said he had an old document signed by Washington. In fact, it was a military pass issued to some Revolutionary worthy, permitting him to go through the lines. My uncle naturally pricked up his ears at the mention of his favorite character, General Washington, and immediately asked to see this interesting relic. The Englishman then held it up dramatically, and when Uncle Moses read it he felt like embracing his visitor. For, lo and behold, the pass was made out in the name of one of my uncle’s own ancestors!

It had every earmark of age, was written on old paper in faded ink, the creases were almost worn through, and the edges were frayed. To his covetous eyes the pass seemed much more desirable on account of its connection with his forbears. He asked the Englishman what he wanted for it and how it had come into his possession. He glibly explained he had found it in an old-fashioned hair trunk in the attic of a house in old Philadelphia. He wanted fifteen dollars for this pass—a large sum in those days, when one could buy a full autograph letter of Washington for that much money. Uncle Moses rose to this thin story as a trout strikes at a fly.

Some years later Ferdinand J. Dreer, of Philadelphia, a connoisseur, came to see him. Among other things, my uncle showed him the faded pass. Mr. Dreer looked at it for a moment, and then, according to Uncle Moses, turned to him and in that cheerfully disgusted tone which one collector uses to a brother who has made a foolish deal, said:—

“Mr. Polock, you, of all men, should know better! This thing is an arrant forgery, and worth less than nothing.”

It later appeared that Robert Spring was the first great forger of American documents. He had written many such military passes, all of them with spurious signatures of General Washington. But he was always foxy enough to look up the name of some ancestor of the man on whom he planned to prey. Uncle Moses, nevertheless, remained stoical, and said this outlay of fifteen dollars was one of the most profitable investments he had ever made. It placed him on his guard as nothing had before; was, in fact, an investment that would in time be worth thousands of dollars to him.