Infamous Counterfeiter Drew Notes by Hand
Who would you rate as the most notorious counterfeiter in U.S. history?
There are two counterfeiters that come to mind, the first and most recent being North Korea with its Superdollar $100 bank notes. On the domestic side, my vote would go to Emanuel Ninger (1846/7-1924), known as “Jim the Penman.” Unlike other counterfeiters, Ninger drew each of his counterfeits by hand. He was caught when he placed a phony bill on a damp bar and the ink began to run. (Likely, so did Ninger.)
What collector coin is the most commonly counterfeited?
Surveys indicate it is likely the Morgan silver dollar. Other popularly counterfeited U.S. coins include the circulation gold denominations. About 36 percent of coin dealers have reported encountering fake $20, about 33 percent have encountered $20 and $1 gold, and about 27 percent have encountered $10.
Is there any value to a counterfeit coin?
A counterfeit coin can be of value in that it becomes a learning experience to be studied. The counterfeit may have some intrinsic value, this also being a plus. There are collectors interested in contemporary counterfeits. Contemporary counterfeits were meant to be used as money rather than to deceive collectors. (I am aware of foreign contemporary counterfeit coin collectors, not U.S.)
I know it’s illegal to own a 1933 $20 double eagle. What about the experimental 1964 Peace dollar?
The Treasury Department insists all 1964 Peace silver dollar coins are accounted for, none being available to coin collectors. Knowing our government’s track record with the 1933 $20, I wouldn’t hold my breath that there isn’t an example clandestinely out there. Depending on circumstances, it’s not clear if such an example would be considered to be stolen government property or not.
Can you explain the Hobby Protection Act?
15 USC 2101-2016 is the Hobby Protection Act signed into law on November 29, 1973. The act requires importers and manufacturers of imitation political items (buttons, posters, stickers and the like) to mark them with the calendar year in which they were made. The act further requires imitation coins, tokens, commemorative medals, and paper money to be marked with specifically outlined identification information.
Is there a specific marking required to appear on imitation coins under the Hobby Protection Act?
The Federal Trade Commission amended the rules in 1988, requiring the word “copy” to appear on coin imitations in a minimum lettering size “as a proportion of the diameter of coin reproductions” as outlined in 53 FR 38942 dated Oct. 4, 1988.
What foreign countries use the U.S. dollar as their official currency?
There are currently 11 foreign countries where the U.S. dollar is the official currency. These are Bonaire, British Virgin Islands, Ecuador, El Salvador, Marshall Islands, Micronesia, Palau, Panama Timor and Leste, Turks and Caicos, and Zimbabwe. In addition, five U.S. territories use the dollar as their official currency. These are American Samoa, Guam, Northern Marina Islands, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands.
The film industry has a deep history despite its relatively short life. There is no singular person who can be attributed to inventing the cinema. In 1891 the Edison Company created a prototype of the Kinetoscope, allowing a person to view moving pictures. The first to present moving pictures to an audience was the Lumière brothers in 1895, using their newly invented Cinématographe. The Cinématographe was a camera, a projector and a film printer all in one.
While technology has made leaps and bounds since then, the movies wouldn’t be the same without the people in front of the camera. From Max Linder, who may have been the world’s first movie star, to Charlie Chaplin and Mary Pickford to the stars of today. These people are what truly draw the masses to the theater time after time.
These actors pushed barriers in the entertainment industry and made movie- goers feel excitement, love, and even fear through their exceptional skills on screen.
One such actress emerged on the big screen in an era of film adding color to the picture and sound. Anna May Wong starred in numerous ground-breaking films of her time.
Born on Jan. 3, 1905, in Los Angeles’s Chinatown, Anna May Wong was born Wong Liu Tsong, the second of eight children. Her grandfather emigrated from Taishan, China, to the U.S. in the 1850s, opening a store in California near the gold rushers. Wong’s father eventually moved back to China for a brief period before officially settling in California himself.
Wong worked in her family’s laundromat while attending elementary school. First, she went to California Street public elementary school before transferring to the Chinese Mission School in Chinatown after being bullied for her race.
In the 1910s, the film industry began to move to California, allowing Wong to visit movie sets. She often skipped school and used her lunch money to go to the movies. At this time, at the young age of 9, Wong decided she would be a movie star. She combined her English and Chinese names, creating Anna May Wong, as her stage name by age 11. Wong got her first role in a movie in 1919. A casting call had gone out for Chinese women for the new movie The Red Lantern. Wong asked her father’s friend to introduce her to the assistant director. Through this connection, Wong was cast as an extra in her first movie. She continued to work as an extra in numerous movies while still attending school, until 1921, when she dropped out of Los Angeles High School to be an actress full- time.
When she was 17, Wong landed her first leading role. The Toll of the Sea (1922) also happened to be the first featurelength film made by Technicolor. Color had been introduced to film not long before but only for short films, as early technology had each frame hand colored which was time-consuming and expensive.
Herbert Kalmus’s Technicolor Corporation introduced a special camera in 1922 that allowed for some color in a full-length feature film, primarily reds and greens.
The film, based on the opera “Madama Butterfly,” follows a young Chinese woman named Lotus Flower, played by Wong, who rescues a young American man, Allen Carver, from the sea. The two fall in love and Carver, played by Kenneth Harlan, promises to take Lotus Flower to America with him. His friends discourage him from following through with his promise, and he eventually returns without her. When Carver returns to China some years later, he is accompanied by his American wife. Since then, Lotus Flower has given birth to a son. At first, she pretends the boy belongs to a neighbor, but eventually, the truth comes out and Lotus Flower asks the couple to take the boy back to America with them.
The film received positive reviews, with Wong herself being described as “extraordinarily fine” by Variety, and The New York Times saying she had succeeded in a difficult role and “should be seen again and again on screen.” Critics abroad even claimed that she had carried the film with her performance.
She also acted in Douglas Fairbanks’ The Thief of Bagdad (1924) and gained further international recognition. She also became a fashion icon around this time. In the 1920s and ’30s, Wong was hailed as one of the top fashion icons, even being voted as the “world’s bestdressed woman” in 1934 by the Mayfair Mannequin Society of New York. Despite this success, Wong struggled to receive the leading roles she auditioned for, often being cast as a typical “Asian character” in supporting roles. She left for Europe in 1928 and spent most of the next few years traveling back and forth to the U.S. for various films and stage work. During this time, she starred in Piccadilly (1929), Daughter of the Dragon (1931), Shanghai Express (1932), Java Head (1934) and Daughter of Shanghai (1937).
Wong was rejected for the leading role in The Good Earth (1937) in favor of a white actress in Yellowface, and it is one of the most well-known cases of casting discrimination cases of the 1930s. After the disappointment of this, Wong announced plans for a tour of China to visit her family, who had returned to her father’s hometown in 1934. She also wanted to learn more about Chinese theater and better perform for international audiences. She spent the year-long tour visiting her family’s ancestral village, studying Chinese culture and documenting her experiences on film. At the time, there were very few prominent women directors in Hollywood. Wong also wrote about her journey in a series of articles for prominent U.S. newspapers such as the New York Herald Tribune and the Los Angeles Examiner.
While visiting, she dealt with criticism from the people, and her reception at each stop varied from warm to hostile. By the end of the trip, Wong concluded that she felt she could never perform in Chinese Theatre, for the Chinese regarded her as too American, but the Americans preferred to cast other races in Chinese roles.
When she returned, she starred in a few B films, which worked against the many stereotypes of Chinese Americans portrayed in film. When playing the lead role in Daughter of Shanghai, the character was rewritten to better fit Wong, the script was also tailored to her, to the point where the working title of the film became Anna May Wong Story.
In the late 1930s, Wong advocated for the support of China during its struggles against Japan. She auctioned her movie
costumes and donated the money to Chinese aid, and she was recognized by the Chinese Benevolent Association of California for her work to support Chinese refugees. She also wrote a cookbook and dedicated it to United China Relief. She made very few films between 1939 and 1942, choosing instead to focus on war efforts.
She returned to the movies in 1949 after her father died, taking a small role in a movie called Impact. After, she starred in a detective series for television in 1951. The show was canceled before a second season could air, and Wong’s health deteriorated.
In 1956, Wong hosted a documentary on China, where she used footage taken during her 1936 tour of the country. In 1960, she received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame during its inauguration for her contributions to the film industry. The star is located at 1708 Vine Street, and she was the first Asian American actress to receive the honor. There is also a larger- than-life statue of Wong as one of the four supporting pillars of the Gateway to Hollywood on the southeast corner of Hollywood Boulevard.
On Feb. 3, 1961, Wong died from a heart attack. She was an international film star, fashion icon and a trailblazer in the entertainment industry, creating greater representation for Asian Americans in film to this day.
Anna May Wong was featured on the last of the United States Mint’s American Women’s quarters for the year 2022. The obverse has the common design for the series, and the reverse shows a close-up portrait of Wong with her chin resting on her hand. The design is surrounded by the bright lights of a marquee sign.