Australian florin 1926-1931 forgeries

 

Knowledge of these "coins" was contained within John Dean's "1665 Australian Coin Varieties Catalogue" which gave very little information on how to identify the forgeries and no information on their history. Vince Kelly's book ( "The Shadow" (Angus & Robertson, Sydney, 1954) is not about coins, it is about a policeman and while it provides valuable insight into the underworld of Sydney in the 1920s and 1930s and the techniques used to track forgers and other criminals, it gives only the vaguest hints as to the techniques used by Manders and Twible for the manufacture and distribution of their wares.
One thing which does emerge from the book as a whole is that counterfeiting was a problem of considerable concern to the authorities of the period. High grade forgeries of florins were circulated in 1926, 1927, 1928 and 1931. These spurious coins appear to have been struck rather than cast and had a silver content similar to that of genuine florins.
The clandestine mint of Twible and Manders was in Redfern, an inner suburb of Sydney, and although its major product were the counterfeit florins which comprise the subject of this article, it was also manufacturing bogus shillings and sixpences.
 A hint as to why this was a profitable venture comes from another of the stories in Kelly's book. In the early thirties, after Twible and Manders were safely incarcerated, Frank Fahy was given the task of breaking a counterfeit ring responsible for a surfeit of shillings. At the time, an ounce of silver was worth about 1/6. Given that a shilling weighed a fifth of an ounce and contained 7.5% copper, two ounces of silver costing 3/- would be very nearly enough to make eleven shillings (11/-).
Even allowing for the cost of production and distribution, the profit margin was substantial. It turned out that the spurious shillings were being produced in Hong Kong or China and were of such high quality as to be quite undetectable. It may well be that readers of this article have shillings in their possession bearing dates from the early thirties which were never produced in Melbourne. Returning to the Twible-Manders escapade, the florins I have seen bear no trace of having been cast.
They all lack the bubbled surface typical of cast objects. Although none of the specimens I have seen would grade higher than Fine, if the coins had been cast then I would expect to see evidence thereof in the highly protected fields such as the interior of the letters. Furthermore, casting is extremely slow and it would have taken a very long time to produce the £11,000 worth of florins that the pair is suspected of putting into circulation.
However, in the text and the illustrations there is mention of crucibles and moulds and no hint of dies or a coining press. This is a bit of a mystery to me. Kelly devotes much more space to the activities and apprehension of Twible and it seems that Twible was operating for much longer than Manders. The crucibles and moulds were found in a raid on Twible's premises so it may have been that Manders and Twible were striking florins in a press when they were in partnership but that Twible's solo operations were with cast forgeries.
There is the vaguest hint in the book that such was the case for Kelly mentions that Fahy had acquired the knack of detecting bogus florins by touch. There is yet another possibility. Maybe the moulds were used for making blanks which were then struck into "coins" and maybe Kelly simply omits mention of the coining equipment. This would explain the presence of the moulds in Twible's premises and the struck appearance of the coins themselves.
There are two problems with this hypothesis. Although perhaps quicker than for the preparation of coins, the casting process would still be tediously slow, and it is doubtful that struck forgeries could be detected by touch. This is definitely a subject for further research.

The following illustrations are of the counterfeit florins produced by Twible and Manders along with images of genuine coins of roughly the same grade.

 

 

A genuine 1928 florin and a counterfeit one in roughly the same condition. The differences are hard to spot. The obverses have the same number of rim beads but the alignment of the letters is slightly different. On the counterfeit coin the point of George V's beard is a little more pronounced than on the genuine coin. Nevertheless, the obverse on the counterfeit coin is very difficult to distinguish from that on the genuine one.

 

Genuine

 

Forgery

 

The following pictures illustrate the differences between the genuine and counterfeit reverses. With the exception of the dates, the following pictures are all of the 1928 florins.

 

 

 

Identification of Twible-Manders counterfeit florins

Point gaps between rim beads

On the genuine coin, the second leg of the H and the first I of SHILLINGS point gaps between rim beads. On the forgery they point at beads. Furthermore, on the forgery the first L leans further to the right than the one on the genuine coin.

 

Genuine

 

Forgery

 

 

Arch of the scroll

On the counterfeit coins, the arch of the scroll is closer to the tip of the shield than on the genuine coins.

 

Genuine

 

Forgery

 

 

The kangaroo

The kangaroo on the counterfeit florins has a more rounded back than the one on the genuine coins. Also, the kangaroo's feet are more horizontal than those on the coins from the Melbourne Mint.

 

Genuine

 

Forgery

 

 

The emu's leg

The emu's leg supporting the shield is somewhat thicker on the counterfeit coins than on the genuine ones.

 

Genuine

 

Forgery

 

 

The upper quadrants on the inner shield

The upper quadrants on the inner shield are smaller on the counterfeit coins than on the genuine ones. Overall, the shield is a slightly different shape, straighter betwen the arms of the kangaroo, and more curved above the emu's foot.

 

Genuine

 

Forgery

 

 

Date

On genuine coins the 19 leans right but on the counterfeits the 19 is more upright and the 1 is less well-formed. On the genuine coin the 6 leans slightly to the left but on the counterfeit it leans slightly to the right.

 

Genuine

 

Forgery

 

 

As for the 1927 issues, on genuine coins the 19 leans right but on the counterfeits the 19 is more upright and the 1 is less well-formed. Unlike the 1926 coins, the final digit of the date is similarly aligned on both genuine and counterfeit coins.

 

Genuine

 

Forgery

 

 

Same remarks for the 19 as in prior examples but here on the counterfeit florin the 8 is somewhat lower than on the genuine coin. Clarke mentions a "large 8 in-line" variety. It is just conceivable that he was looking at the forgery.

 

Genuine

 

Forgery

 

 

Same remarks as above for the 19 but the 31 shows significant differences also. On the forgery the 3 leans more to the left and the final 1 is more upright than the corresponding digits on the genuine coin.

 

Genuine

 

Forgery