Fake money 2000 years ago

March 28, 2006 12:14 PM

Great fakers scammed ancient Italy. An ingenious counterfeit-coin scam has been rumbled by scientists in Italy. But no one is going to jail, because the forgers lived more than 2,000 years ago.
posted by riffola (7 comments total)

Neat.
posted by Faint of Butt at 12:21 PM on March 28, 2006

Italy: champions at scamming since 300 B.C.!

/self-deprecating

> But no one is going to jail, because the forgers lived more than 2,000 years ago

Damn. I blame those convenient statute of limitations laws the gov't recently passed...
posted by funambulist at 12:42 PM on March 28, 2006

There's a long history of counterfeiters producing fourrées. A lot of ancient Greek and Roman coins have test cuts on them where merchants checked that the metal was solid.
posted by hyperizer at 1:00 PM on March 28, 2006

Isn't this why merchants used to bite coins? Like you see in the movies? :P
posted by fusinski at 1:24 PM on March 28, 2006

To solve the mystery, the Italian researchers devised a treatment that produces an effect similar to electroplating, using only materials known to be available in the third century BC.

Now that's just plain cool.

Makes me think of the Baghdad Battery [wikipedia], though that's a little more complicated than the ingenious method these Italian researchers used.
posted by jbrjake at 2:05 PM on March 28, 2006

That's awesome.
posted by grouse at 4:19 PM on March 28, 2006

Reminds me of one of the stories in Voice of the Fire. Thanks!
posted by homunculus at 9:28 PM on March 28, 2006