Forgery
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Template:CrimLaw Forgery is the process of making or adapting objects or documents (see false document), with the intention to deceive. The similar crime of fraud is the crime of deceiving another, including through the use of objects obtained through forgery. Copies, studio replicas, and reproductions are not considered forgeries, though they may later become forgeries through knowing and willful mis-attributions.
In the 16th century imitators of Albrecht Dürer's style of printmaking improved the market for their own prints by signing them "AD", making them forgeries.
In the 20th century the art market made forgeries highly profitable. There are widespread forgeries of especially valued artists, such as drawings meant to be by Picasso, Klee, and Matisse.
This usage of 'forgery' does not derive from metalwork done at a 'forge', but it has a parallel history. A sense of "to counterfeit" is already in the Anglo-French verb forger "falsify."
Forgery is one of the techniques of fraud, including identity theft. Forgery is one of the threats that have to be addressed by security engineering.
A forgery is essentially concerned with a produced or altered object. Where the prime concern of a forgery is less focused on the object itself— what it is worth or what it "proves"— than on a tacit statement of criticism that is revealed by the reactions the object provokes in others, then the larger process is a hoax. In a hoax, a rumor or a genuine object "planted" in a concocted situation, may substitute for a forged physical object.
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Topics in forgery
- Archaeological forgery
- Discoveries of Shinichi Fujimura
- James Ossuary
- Piltdown Man
- Moses Shapira
- Tiara of Saitapharne, Louvre
- The Lady of Elx saw a controversy circa 1995 regarding its authenticity. Recently (2005), the Spanish National Research Council concluded in a research that the pigmentation was, in fact, from ancient times.
- See also Kensington Runestone controversy
- Drake's Plate of Brass
- Sinaia lead plates
- Art forgery
- Literary forgery - these literary forgeries all had some effect on the course of cultural history. Other literary forgeries, such as the Hitler diaries, briefly achieve wide notoriety, without affecting subsequent history; they are brought together as literary hoaxes.
- Epistle to the Laodiceans
- Theology of Aristotle
- Ademar of Chabannes' forged Life of St. Martial
- Thomas Chatterton's pseudo-medieval poetry
- Ossianic poems
- Manuscript of Dvůr Králové and Manuscript of Zelená Hora
- The Salamander Letter, which offered an alternative account of Joseph Smith's finding of the Book of Mormon, written by master forger Mark Hofmann.
- Jack the Ripper's Diary
- Relic forgery - It is not the efficacy of a relic that is in question, but only its provenance.
- cf True Cross
- cf Shroud of Turin
- Biblical Archaeology - Ancient artifacts
- Political forgery - false documents used for purposes of black propaganda.
- The Protocols of the Elders of Zion
- Zinoviev Letter
- Tanaka Memorial
- Ems Dispatch (actually more of a document altered by Otto von Bismarck in order to incite a war response from France against Germany)
References
- Robert Cohon, Discovery & Deceit: archaeology & the forger's craft Kansas: Nelson-Atkins Museum, 1996
- Oscar Muscarella, The Lie Became Great: the forgery of Ancient Near Eastern cultures, 2000
See also
- Counterfeiting: coins, currency, drugs and postage stamps
- identity document forgery
- False documents
- Yellowcake Forgery
- James Maybrick
- Donation of Constantine
- see also Vinland map controversy