Lot 153
Famous forgery ex David Allen Gee
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Notes:
- David Allan Gee was labelled "Australia's most audacious coin forger" in a book about his exploits that was published in 1986. He had successfully infiltrated the collections of the Royal Australian Mint (RAM), the Museum of Applied Arts and Sciences (now the Powerhouse Museum) and the Dixson Collection housed in the State Library of New South Wales, where he either charmed senior management figures to loan or gift him rare coins, or taking advantage of lax security simply raided the collections with impunity switching common coins and crude counterfeits for rarities. Later in life he boasted that examples of the extremely rare 1920 'S' Sovereign, which can now trade for upwards of a million Australian dollars, would not be in circulation had he not switched them out of an official collection. The inference was that on the occasions when he had unsupervised access to the RAM Collection, he was able to swap them for very common 1920 'P' sovereigns. We had long discussions with David in his last years when he regularly visited us to purchase bullion sovereigns that he would trade in his old haunt of Sydney's China Town. Out of habit he never wanted to pay real money for the coins and so would always take from his pocket examples of the forgeries for which he was convicted that he would try to horse-trade for gold. Gee had cajoled his 'friend' James Miller Henderson, the Controller of the Royal Australian Mint, to request a specimen of this coin from the Royal Mint, London but was duly informed that no coins were ever struck and that all that existed was a trial strike taken from the reverse die which it also held. However, the Royal Mint did send the RAM an electrotype taken from the trial for its official collection. Despite their friendship Henderson was wary of Gee's intentions and could not be convinced to lend him the electrotype so that he could 'study' it. Gee was undeterred and switched his attention to his other 'friend' Pat Boland, the honorary numismatist at the Museum of Applied Arts and Sciences whose collection also housed an electrotype of the 1909 Florin that it too had received from the Royal Mint, London. How he gained access was unproven in court but, with an electrotype now in his hands, Gee was well on his way to producing a fully-fledged model of the 1909 Florin. All he needed was an obverse die of King Edward VII to complete the coin which was duly provided via the 1902 'S' £2 dies which he had stolen from the Dixson Collection. Gee re-worked impressions from the electrotype to hone the reverse design, and in doing so produced many working models. Some show the raised mountain ranges and river systems of the Australian landscape while others are flatter and more rudimentary in design. The original slides presented at his criminal trial show fourteen reverse strikes in both silver and bronze that were considered as evidence, some being more finished than others. The completed double-sided 1909 Florin which ultimately led to Gee's undoing, was sold to entrepreneur Larry Adler for $10,000 having fooled the experts of the day who lauded Gee's knowledge and quite often were quick to embrace his other forgeries. He is known to have produced two convincing coins as he sold a second to Ray Jewell a renowned Melbourne coin dealer who helped authenticate the first, and so it must be either of these coins which was traded in recent years by the Rare Coin Company of Perth for around $200,000 being promoted as from the collection of A.M. Le Souef, a Deputy Master of the Melbourne Mint. Considering that there were no double-sided coins struck by any legitimate mint this provenance was certainly a deliberate smoke screen, as might well be the case also with provenances now associated with some or all of the Australian 1920 'S' Sovereigns, if you believe David Gee's reminiscences. David Allan Gee was certainly a colourful character who after many decades had just begun revealing his side of the story about his past coin escapades. Fortunately for some, his inside knowledge of what really happened went with him to his grave in 2013 when he died of complications from a twisted bowel. Smalls Auctions October Sale offers a rare piece of Australian Numismatic infamy in the form of a silver reverse striking of the Australia 1909 Florin which is closest in match to type DSC100138 tabled at the Gee trial.
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