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> 10 years went by and the search for Mister 880 turned into the largest and most expensive counterfeit investigation in Secret Service history.
The article doesn't explain why the Secret Service made this their biggest case, and it doesn't make much sense to me. If the dollars were accepted by the general population, it would cause an infinitesimal increase in inflation of no consequence to others. And if shopkeepers wised up to the false dollars and rejected them, at worst he was defrauding the public by a few hundred dollars a year. In either eventuality, surely the Secret Service had more notorious counterfeiters to track down?
The state reserves some of the harshest punishments for counterfeiters, since large scale counterfeit operations is one of the few crimes that is an attack on the state itself.
The US secret service was originally created specifically to combat counterfeit money, it's no surprise that they would keep tracking this man for a decade.
This man is unusual because he did the tiniest amount of one the most severely punished crime.
Maybe it's just that any investigation that takes 10 years is by definition one of the more expensive ones.
A small leak can sink a ship. The fake dollars weren't knowingly accepted.
If public confidence in the value of money is lost, we're all in big trouble.
The Secret Service was right to pursue the case zealously.
We have the benefit of hindsight. The Secret Service couldn’t know the true scale of the operation, how many fake bills were in circulation, and that they were only singles.
> If the dollars were accepted by the general population, it would cause an infinitesimal increase in inflation of no consequence to others.
That would depend on how many counterfeit dollars were out there, which the authorities did not know at that point of the investigation
To set an example, as a deterrent to larger operations. If they go after even the smallest impact counterfeiters, it leaves no room for a plausible level at which an operation can safely run under, no matter how small.
If you want to know more, there is a much better and very entertainingly written series of articles about this, from a 1949 issue of the New Yorker: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1949/08/27/old-eight-eigh...
That article had an unsatisfactory and anti-climatic ending. It ended right when the Secret Service arrested the counterfeiter, where a normal reader would expect more discussion of how the Secret Service found the man and how they questioned the man after the arrest.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YcuDTEbR8CE. Mr 880, a movie loosely based on the case.
One dollar in 1943 is worth about $19 today's dollars.
He started in 1938 and was arrested in 1948:
1938 23.42
1943 19.09
1948 13.70
> Juettner began working as a maintenance man and building superintendent in New York's Upper East Side. His job allowed him and his family to live rent free in the basement of the building where he worked.
If $1 is $19 I am suprised more people didnt check that their $1 notes are legit back then. Story makes it sound like $1 was chump change.
A shabby NYC apartment in the 1940s could be rented for $30/month. So producing just 1 bill a day would be enough to meet the rent.
Since they were silver certificates he could have redeemed them for a 26.73g coin composed of 90% silver and 10% copper. In 2026, the value of the silver has fluctuated between about $46 and $94 (and the value of the copper content has stayed a little over 3 cents).
Would owning his apartment disqualify him from being a folk hero? If he was a renter, does he deserve to be a hero? Just wondering. If he'd gotten rich from printing fake currency and become a right wing dictator would you think the same as if he was just a broke tenant? Why or why not?
Fun fact: in parts of East Africa, a $50 bill may be worth about 60-70 $1 dollar bills, due to the $1 bill being easier to counterfeit (and also more likely worn down).
Very interesting. It's probably because fewer people take the time to counterfeit $50s, $10s or $2s than anything else. What about $100 bills? In Argentina, if you have an older $100 bill, no one will take it. And apparently there's a roaring trade in fake $20s in Costa Rica, which I only learned at a casino there recently when I took USD directly out of an ATM and had it inspected by a pit boss in the same establishment. It's ironic, because if I were someone with an interest in counterfeiting, I'd focus on forging Pesos or Colones or something no one looks at before I'd take a stab at USD.
In parts of the USA (well, amazon.com), you can buy bills of $10,000,000,000 from Africa for very little.
example: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01L3536O2
Immersed yourself there or…?
Old family story: Back in the 1920's and 1930's, one of my cousins (a bit removed) was a poacher in rural northern Michigan. Everyone from the County Sheriff on down knew that she was a poacher. Everyone also knew that she was a widow with several children, living in (even for the place and time) grim poverty, and the she was poaching to feed her children.
As kids, we were told more details - both to know about our extended family, and to support various lessons about poverty and charity and pre-WWII rural communities.
But one of the more subtle lessons was that "the law" and society's actual rules are, at best, overlapping circles on a Venn diagram. No matter what lawmakers, those invested in the legal system, and those telling simplistic stories to children might say.
Under ordinary circumstances, a federal counterfeiting arrest would have generated little sympathy. But the story of Emerich Juettner struck the public imagination immediately. Here was an old man surviving in poverty by printing crude one-dollar bills one at a time. He was not violent, greedy, or glamorous.
At trial, Juettner admitted his activities openly. The judge sentenced him to only a year and a day in prison, and he was paroled after 4 months. He was also made to pay a fine of $1. It has been agreed that Juettner’s complete lack of greed was the rationale behind the light sentence. …
Juettner returned to a life of normalcy, and lived out the rest of his days in the suburbs of Long Island, where he died in 1955, at the age of 79.
Literally the single paragraph you omitted:
After his release, Juettner briefly achieved celebrity status. His notoriety became so widespread that Hollywood adapted the story into the 1950 film Mister 880, directed by Edmund Goulding. Eventually, Juettner made more money from the release of Mister 880 than he had made by counterfeiting.>He was also made to pay a fine of $1
I wonder if the cashier checked the bill closely when he paid it.
If he wrote a check the office would’ve had a bet pool on whether it would be returned
Maybe it was a test.
> References:
> The 70-year-old retiree who became America’s worst counterfeiter. [link]
He evaded capture for 10 years, making him one of the best. Also got less than a slap on his wrist and ended up making legal money on the whole ordeal.
About 20 years ago there was a gang that made fake Brazilian R$1 coins (they must have been worth 50 US cents then, I don't recall precisely). And I have collected a couple of very shady R$0,50 coins that I'm pretty sure are fake. I collect commemorative coins so I always check my change carefully.
I don't think the materials are expensive, but the electricity required might be. So my guess is that this might make sense if someone steals the power. One guy was busted stealing electricity to mine bitcoin a few years ago.
OTOH, maybe they just do it for fun.
This was pretty common with £1 coins until they moved to bimetallic coinage. The fakes would be rejected by vending machines.
The biggest tells were poor reeding quality and slightly soft detailing. On very low quality fakes, the face and obverse weren't aligned, though I never encountered one of these in the wild.
Is it possible that he might have spent almost $1 in materials and labor and allocated capital expenses on equipment ... to create each of these counterfeits.
Attempting this today would probably surely cost that much in today's dollars?
EDIT: on a second thought ..this almost feels like "proof of work" for currency :)
The U.S. government spends approximately 4.1 cents [1] to produce each $1 bill. It would probably be more expensive to counterfeit it because of the volume, but I doubt it would be more than $1.
The US penny and nickel are the only bits of currency we use that cost more to produce than their face value.
This was an interesting read. I am somewhat reminded of J. S. G. Boggs (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._S._G._Boggs), who used to hand draw banknotes and bills as a performance art of sort.
There is an excellent book about him by Lawrence Weschler called _Boggs: A Comedy of Values_.
Slightly off topic, Vladimir Nabakov wrote a beautiful, sad story about a guy like this -- a lonely counterfeiter that made a small number of individually crafted bills. It is called The Leonardo.
It reminds me of Bojarski
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ceslaw_Bojarski
The 2025 movie is worth watching https://www.imdb.com/title/tt35495035/
> Eventually, Juettner made more money from the release of Mister 880 than he had made by counterfeiting
I'm guessing this was before the law where you couldn't benefit from crimes?
The other side of the trade: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superdollar
In short, there are a great many US 100s out there that are so good that experts are required to spot them. The companies that sell/service the equipment necessary to print these only deal with national governments. So all eyes are on north korea.
> He was also made to pay a fine of $1.
I see what they did there.
The lack of greed is wonderful. It makes me think of how many endeavours would have succeeded if the founders and advisors weren't greedy.
At least this story shows that the lack of greed didn't improve quality.
Meanwhile on TV now there are real, serious, expensive advertisements selling a 50 cent roll of pennies for TEN DOLLARS
Whatever legal business we are in otherwise, apparently it's the wrong one
Slightly off-topic, but the first time I saw a (real) 2-dollar bill, I almost called the Secret Service on a customer. Was then educated about the legality of 2-dollar bills.
The Frank Bourassa story is pretty incredible. There’s a TV series but I recommend listening to his interviews. I think NPR has one that is pretty good. The level of planning, logistics and craft the guy put into his illegal money printing shop is admirable. Extremely intelligent and driven person. He could have succeeded in any other legal business if wanted to, but looks like it would not be the same thrill for him. His counterfeit US bills were so good that allegedly some of it is still in circulation with silent approval of the US government.
Moral of the story:
It's ok for the govt to print as many notes as is needed to satisfy the govt's needs needs but it is not ok for the common Joe to do the same. One is labeled as inflation or quantitative easing and the other is labeled a crime
Crime paid modestly and then a jackpot for the movie rights
These days it is much more effective to pay employees to swap payment terminals (or just employees doing it themselves), changing where the money ends up, and banks don't really know what to do about it.