# Could a Modern Forgery (1950's Document) Be Detected? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [November 10, 2008, 1:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-a-modern-forgery-1950s-document-be-detected/472025 "2008-11-10T13:08:47Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![ralph124c](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/8797f3/32.png) [@ralph124c](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ralph124c)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2008, 1:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-a-modern-forgery-1950s-document-be-detected/472025/1 "2008-11-10T13:08:47Z")
Suppose a forger decided to make up a document (handwritten) that was supposed to date from 1951. Would modern analytical science be able to detect it? Has there been enough changes in inks, papers, printing, etc. such that a forgery of this type could be detected? ---
**Author:** ![WotNot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/e19b73/32.png) [@WotNot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WotNot)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2008, 1:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-a-modern-forgery-1950s-document-be-detected/472025/2 "2008-11-10T13:31:11Z")
I suppose it would depend on the specifics – 1951 isn’t so long ago that there may not be some papers and inks still manufactured identically, but I’m sure that the most commonly available examples of each will have changed considerably. Of course, a forger who’d use whatever came to hand would hardly be a master of the craft, I suppose. ---
**Author:** ![Ethilrist](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ethilrist/32/4604_2.png) [@Ethilrist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ethilrist)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2008, 1:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-a-modern-forgery-1950s-document-be-detected/472025/3 "2008-11-10T13:40:33Z")
Well, sure, if it was written on official Dukes of Hazzard stationery. ---
**Author:** ![si\_blakely](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d9b06d/32.png) [@si\_blakely](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/si_blakely)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2008, 1:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-a-modern-forgery-1950s-document-be-detected/472025/4 "2008-11-10T13:41:02Z")
> [@ralph124c](#): > > Suppose a forger decided to make up a document (handwritten) that was supposed to date from 1951. Would modern analytical science be able to detect it? Has there been enough changes in inks, papers, printing, etc. such that a forgery of this type could be detected? Chances are C[sup]14[/sup] analysis would give the game away - documents from 1951 probably will not show the increase in C[sup]14[/sup] in the atmosphere caused by tests later in that decade. Si ---
**Author:** ![Szlater](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/90ced4/32.png) [@Szlater](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Szlater)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2008, 2:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-a-modern-forgery-1950s-document-be-detected/472025/5 "2008-11-10T14:00:58Z")
> [@si\_blakely](#): > > Chances are C[sup]14[/sup] analysis would give the game away - documents from 1951 probably will not show the increase in C[sup]14[/sup] in the atmosphere caused by tests later in that decade. > > Si Surely any forger worth his salt would just track down some paperstock and ink from the 1950s to perform this kind of task? That would defeat any radiometric dating, wouldn’t it? ---
**Author:** ![Paul\_in\_Qatar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ccd318/32.png) [@Paul\_in\_Qatar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Paul_in_Qatar)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2008, 2:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-a-modern-forgery-1950s-document-be-detected/472025/6 "2008-11-10T14:03:35Z")
Of course that is the thing about a forgery. We never know about the ones that are very, very good. There are a couple of things we could do when examining a document allegedly from 1951. First we look at its provence. Who has had this sucker for all these years? Then we will look at our suspect document as part of a series. How does it compare with other 1951 bills of sales (or deeds or wills)? We will also look at the handwriting compared to other documents from the same author and time. Then we can look at physical evidence. Are the paper, ink and pen all corrct? Is it correctly aged? It is quite hard to get everything right. ---
**Author:** ![Baldwin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/baldwin/32/7264_2.png) [@Baldwin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baldwin)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2008, 2:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-a-modern-forgery-1950s-document-be-detected/472025/7 "2008-11-10T14:09:13Z")
> [@Ethilrist](#): > > Well, sure, if it was written on official Dukes of Hazzard stationery. Damn it, that’s what I entered the thread to say. (And I can’t even remember where it comes from. Was it _Bloom County_.) ---
**Author:** ![Szlater](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/90ced4/32.png) [@Szlater](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Szlater)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2008, 2:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-a-modern-forgery-1950s-document-be-detected/472025/8 "2008-11-10T14:25:43Z")
> [@Paul in Saudi](#): > > First we look at its provence. I couldn’t agree more. A fortnight in Provence will make any task, such as examining a document’s provenance, much more pleasurable. Such fine cuisine you see, and the wine, oh the wine. ---
**Author:** ![Paul\_in\_Qatar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ccd318/32.png) [@Paul\_in\_Qatar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Paul_in_Qatar)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2008, 2:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-a-modern-forgery-1950s-document-be-detected/472025/9 "2008-11-10T14:28:42Z")
Grumble. I blame the spool chocker. ---
**Author:** ![si\_blakely](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d9b06d/32.png) [@si\_blakely](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/si_blakely)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2008, 2:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-a-modern-forgery-1950s-document-be-detected/472025/10 "2008-11-10T14:50:05Z")
> [@Szlater](#): > > Surely any forger worth his salt would just track down some paperstock and ink from the 1950s to perform this kind of task? That would defeat any radiometric dating, wouldn’t it? It would, but it also introduces additional risks. Even if the paper and ink are the right age, they may not have _aged_ appropriately - telltale chemical changes in the ink and paper that may (or may not) have occurred in stored original stock as opposed to a completed document filed away for 57 years. And real original stock will need to be _distressed_ to look appropriately old, using chemical and physical methods that may leave trace residues. I don’t believe that any forged document purporting to be from the 1950s could stand against a full modern forensic workup, if you had appropriate contemporaneous exemplars. The number of tests that could be run is huge - GC/MS, Xray, radiometric, NMR, IR can all be useful. The real issue is (as **Paul in Saudi** pointed out above) knowing **when** to throw that level of analysis at a possible forgery, compared to the value of the benefit from the forgery. Oh, and that GC/MS with isotopic analysis will be able to tell you that that Provence wine was made with grape concentrate shipped from Australia, aged in oak barrels from the Czech republic, and tarted up with ethylene glycol from a '89 Citroen 2CV 😉 Si ---
**Author:** ![Szlater](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/90ced4/32.png) [@Szlater](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Szlater)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2008, 3:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-a-modern-forgery-1950s-document-be-detected/472025/11 "2008-11-10T15:08:33Z")
> [@si\_blakely](#): > > Oh, and that GC/MS with isotopic analysis will be able to tell you that that Provence wine was made with grape concentrate shipped from Australia, aged in oak barrels from the Czech republic, and tarted up with ethylene glycol from a '89 Citroen 2CV 😉 Damn you, Pierre! ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2008, 3:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-a-modern-forgery-1950s-document-be-detected/472025/12 "2008-11-10T15:29:54Z")
It would depend upon what was done to the item, and who did it, I suspect. Mark Hoffman forged lots of LDS Church documents, but also other historic documents, including, I think, some relatively recent ones. His work was good enough to fool experts for years. But once he was identified as a forger, it was recognized that he had a repertoire of tricks that could then be easily detectoed and associated with him (like the “alligator skin cracking” on the ink that resulted from his artificial aging process). Of course, if he didn’t use that particular trick on the document you were looking at, it wouldn’t work. ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2008, 3:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-a-modern-forgery-1950s-document-be-detected/472025/13 "2008-11-10T15:47:23Z")
It would probably be pretty tough, unless there were some obvious giveaway. See Joe Haldeman’s _The Hemingway Hoax_ for a very clever tale of forging Hemingway’s lost short stories. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2008, 4:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-a-modern-forgery-1950s-document-be-detected/472025/14 "2008-11-10T16:10:00Z")
Lee Israel, who drank herself out of a career as a show business biographer, supported herself for two years by forging letters from celebrities and selling them on the autograph market. She gives the full details in her short book, _Can You Ever Forgive Me?_ (The answer was no for our Eve, who had a letter published in the _Times Book Review_ condemning her. Apparently Eve relied on some fake letters as sources for her biographies.) Israel found blank pages of paper in boxes of literary memorabilia in the New York library archives, which she stole in her clothing. She had printers print up letterheads on these papers. She went around to pawn shops to pick up old manual typewriters. She managed to sell around 400 of these letters before her fake signatures began to attract too much attention. She was eventually convicted. No formal scientific testing was ever applied to the letters that she mentions. Despite her precautions and her research into the originals, she made enough mistakes that the experts in the community saw through her. Would scientific testing detect that the ink in the ribbons and signatures was new? My guess is yes. As si\_blakely said, inks have changed markedly over the last few decades. Finding truly old ink and getting it to set properly into paper in a short amount of time are probably hurdles too high for any non-professional chemist to overcome. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2008, 4:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-a-modern-forgery-1950s-document-be-detected/472025/15 "2008-11-10T16:35:19Z")
> [@si\_blakely](#): > > Chances are C[sup]14[/sup] analysis would give the game away - documents from 1951 probably will not show the increase in C[sup]14[/sup] in the atmosphere caused by tests later in that decade. > > Si Not likely, they use 1950 as the standard, and there’s usualy a +/- of 40 years. More or less, depending. ---
**Author:** ![ralph124c](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/8797f3/32.png) [@ralph124c](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ralph124c)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2008, 4:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-a-modern-forgery-1950s-document-be-detected/472025/16 "2008-11-10T16:46:00Z")
Mark Hoffman )AKA the “Mormon Forger”) used endsheets that he stole from period books. His work was pretty good-good enough to fool the :LDS church leadership. The really strange thing: Hoffman himself was a Mormon-and he was forging stuff that would have made the LDS church a laughingstock 9if the documents were made public). As I recall, he was meticulous-he even noted that the palmyra NY post office change the color of their cancelleation stamp (in 1845 or so). The only screw-up he made was the ink. ---
**Author:** ![Szlater](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/90ced4/32.png) [@Szlater](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Szlater)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2008, 4:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-a-modern-forgery-1950s-document-be-detected/472025/17 "2008-11-10T16:58:53Z")
> [@ralph124c](#): > > The only screw-up he made was the ink. And the bombs. ---
**Author:** ![Musicat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/musicat/32/20189_2.png) [@Musicat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Musicat)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2008, 5:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-a-modern-forgery-1950s-document-be-detected/472025/18 "2008-11-10T17:05:39Z")
For one, laser or copier toner would be a dead giveaway. But I have a 1935 typewriter that works fine. Might need a new ribbon, though. Hmmm…let me see what old paper I can find… ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2008, 6:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-a-modern-forgery-1950s-document-be-detected/472025/19 "2008-11-10T18:14:07Z")
> [@](#): > > Mark Hoffman )AKA the “Mormon Forger”) used endsheets that he stole from period books. His work was pretty good-good enough to fool the :LDS church leadership. The really strange thing: Hoffman himself was a Mormon-and he was forging stuff that would have made the LDS church a laughingstock 9if the documents were made public). > As I recall, he was meticulous-he even noted that the palmyra NY post office change the color of their cancelleation stamp (in 1845 or so). The only screw-up he made was the ink. Look up four posts – I’ve mentioned Hoffman and his forgeries. As I say, once they found his telltale signs, they were able to check other forgeries by him that used the same methods. Hoffman’s real genius, I think, was in the documents he claimed to have found and his psychology in making them. His “Anthon Transcript” looked like what people thought it should look like, and made the Widmer transcript look like a poor copy of his forgery. That’s smart. He also came up with documents that people_expected_ to have existed, using available information as a guide. It helped enormously that he paid close attention to detail, but the clues to the forgery were there. The “Anthon Transcript”, for instance, was glued shut using diluted Elmer’s Glue-All (by Hoffman’s own admission). If anyone had run a chemical test on that, the game would’ve been up. But they didn’t. ---
**Author:** ![Beware\_of\_Doug](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/278dde/32.png) [@Beware\_of\_Doug](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beware_of_Doug)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2008, 6:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-a-modern-forgery-1950s-document-be-detected/472025/20 "2008-11-10T18:27:13Z")
> [@Musicat](#): > > For one, laser or copier toner would be a dead giveaway. > > But I have a 1935 typewriter that works fine. Might need a new ribbon, though. Hmmm…let me see what old paper I can find… You’re parsecs ahead of most forgers right there. Since the introduction of desktop publishing, knowledge of pre-digital typography has deteriorated at an alarming rate. How else could there have been such an avalanche of argument - most of it apparently in earnest - over whether the obviously laser-printed [Rathergate](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rathergate) papers were real? [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-a-modern-forgery-1950s-document-be-detected/472025.md?page=2)