America's Most Wanted - Captured!

The 1969-S Doubled Die Lincoln Cent once made it into the list of America's Secret Service list, not because the Secret Service employees were coin collectors themselves but because the 1969-S Doubled Die cents were once considered to be counterfeit coins. The same individuals who search for Americas Most Wanted Fugitives were for the first time ever searching for America's Most Wanted Coin.

Secret Service Investigates the Production of Fake Coins

By sheer coincidence, the 1969-S Doubled Die cents became tainted by an actual counterfeit, the 1969 Doubled Die Obverse cent.

In 1969, Roy Gray and Morton Goodman began producing fake 1969 Doubled Die Lincoln cents and other counterfeit coins which soon came to the attention of the authorities. Consequently, in July, 1969 the Secret Service searched Gray's residence and they discovered rolled sheets of silver with the approximate thickness of unfinished U.S. coins as well as planchet punches used to produce nickels, dimes, quarters and half dollars.

Gray also possessed a collar with 120 serrations (as opposed to the 118 serrations on authentic dimes) for producing dimes. This fake coin collar was condemning evidence as all the fake 1941 Dimes which displayed the 120 serrations were charged to Gray in his criminal proceedings.

How They Pulled it Off

Gray had managed to acquire an Agietron electrical discharge machine from Alina Corporation. This electrical discharge machine was capable of producing fake coin dies through a spark erosion process. Alina Corporation employees trained Mort Goodman in the proper use of the machine.

Once the fake 1969 Doubled Die Obverse cents were produced, Gray contacted a collector by the name of Robert Teitelbaum and asked him to market the illegal coins. One of the first fake 1969 Doubled Die cents sold for $100. Later, Teitelbaum sold an additional 2,900 fake 1969 Doubled Die Obverse cents to Sam Jowdy for $92,000.

Gray then asked Teitelbaum to place 85 fake 1969 doubled die cents into circulation in the Washington area. But instead, Teitelbaum turned them over to the Secret Service.

Agent Miller from the Secret Service tried to reproduce Gray's fake 1969 Doubled Die obverse cents by using an electrical discharge machine. He was successful. This evidence was also used against Gray and Goodman and the Secret Service began a hunt to recover all 1969 Doubled Die cents that it can get their hands on. In the meantime, in July 1970, Cecil Moorhouse and Bill Hudson had just discovered the first authentic 1969-S Doubled Die Obverse cents. These were genuine examples that were accidentally struck by the U.S. Mint and had the S mint mark as opposed to not having a mint mark like the fake examples.

As the Secret Service searched for fake 1969 Doubled Die Obverse cents, they traced the owners of several authentic 1969-S Doubled Die Obverse cents. The Secret Service assumed that these genuine 1969-S Doubled Die cents were fake and also ordered them to be destroyed, making a rare coin even rarer. In the end, the Secret Service made sense of the whole scenario and returned some of the genuine 1969-S Doubled Die cents back to their owners. Today, thanks to the destruction of several examples by the Secret Service, only about 30 examples are known to exist. In the end, Roy Gray and Morton Goodman were captured and sentenced to multiple years in prison for counterfeiting U.S. coins.