• Abstract and Figures
• Public Full-text

,- , THE ONTARIO NUMISMATIST OFFICIAL PUBLICATION OF THE ONTARIO NUMISMATIC ASSOCIATION WATERLOO, ONTARIO No. 3 Highway, Tillso~~burg,0111. N4G 3J1 Speaker's Circud Service THE ONTARIO NUMISMATIST is published by the Ontario Ken Prophet Numismatic Association. The publication can be obtained with membership in Ban 226, Barrlr, Ont. oneof Lhe followingcalegoriea: bgular Membership 55.00anuually. Husband Judging and Wife (one jonrnal) 57.00 annaally, Junior (up La 18) $3.00 annually, Club Ray G. Pleau Membership 510.03 annually. Life Memberships available for 550.00 after 3 200 Bond St. East, years of regular membership. O.N.A. Silver Lapel Pins 52.50 each. Oshawa, Ont. LIG 1B3 Remittances payable to the Ontario Numiamatie Associntlon, P.O. Box 33, Edilur c/o Mr. Bruce Rasamann, Waterloo, Ontario. N2J3Z6. Gerry Albert 158 Dunvegan Court, Authorized second class mail by the Post OfficeDrpartmenl, Ottawa, and for Sudbury, Onl. P3E 1Z2 payrnenl of postagein cash. DETECTIVES AND C O'IJIJTERFFTT~RS PRESENTED TO- O. N. A. CONVENTION>--- TOBONTe, ANNUAL BANQUET MAY.&!!&'&. by Ma.i or Sheldon S. C am011+ ChiefC-xxato&.-B~-k~o_C.CanaF1_.a.Ottawa. It is a great pleasure to be here to-day as your luncheon speaker and to bring you greetings from the National Currency Collection and the Bank of Canada. When Pat Lambert invited me last fall to speak to-day I accepted without hesitation as it is both a privilege and an honour to be invited to address the largest and most active regional numismatic organization in Canada. This is the second time that I have been the speaker at your annual banquet. The last time was at the I967 convention in Kitchener, just nine years ago. A great deal has happened during those nine years both to the O.N. R. and to numismatics in general. The O.V.A. has gone steadily ahead while numismatics has had its ups and downs but by and large progress has been positive, One of the negative aspects is the great increase in counterfeiting. Now counterfeiting is not a new disease, it has been with us for many centuries. As a matter of fact, it was probab&y invented the day after the first coin was made. Its effects can vary all the way from being just a nuisance to collectors to creating such serious economic consequences that it has resulted in the fall of governments. Examples of the counterfeit coins and counter- feit paper money from past generations have survived to bedevil collectors and to keep them alert anti on their toes. Collecting these early historical counterfeits can even be an interesting side-line to our hobby. A few weeks ago I was in FYankfurt in West Germany visiting the magnificient currency collection of the Deutsche Bundesbank. They showad me their counterfeiting museum which fills a large exhibition room in their head office building. I saw hundreds and hundreds or" counterfeit coins and of counterfeit bank notes, some so crude that you wonder how they could have fooled anyone and others so good that only experts with elaborate laboratory equipment could prove that they were not genuine. In addition, they had cases and cases of counterfeiting equipment which had been seized over the years by the German au'thorities, To-day the coimterfeitfng of coins is not of such great concern to governments 'but it is of very great concern to numismatists because during the last few years it has become a very serious threat to our hobby. Not only are gold coins being couxterfeited in great quanti.ties to plague collectors, hoarder S and speculators but coins of numismatic rarity and value are being counterfeited to the consternation of numis- matistss, collectors and investors. Anyone who buys a rare or expensive coin to-day without first having it au'tienticated is very foolish. It has been estimated, by people who know, that almost one-third of the gold coins in the hands of collectors and dealers to-day are not genuine. The term tfdealersHincludes not only n~mismaticdealers b~xtdealers in precious metals and foreign exchange, including some chwtered banks. Very few of these dealers have anyone on their staff who ca? tell a good coin from a bad one. The subject of counterfeiting and how to cure it is fa too big and complicated to cover in a talk of this kind. Instead I'm going to tell you a story, a true story a.bout a great Canadian whose very name struck fear into counterfeiters about a century ago. ELs name was Jolvl Wilson Muxray. No radlo or television progrmnas have been produced about him, as far as I know, but at least one book has been written about his life and career. It is called '!Memoirs of: a Great Detective" by Victor Speer, published in Toronto in 1905. The author writes of him as follows: itJohn Wilson Murray, Inspector of the Department of Criminal Investigation of the Department of 'Justice, Toronto, was Inspector for almost thirty years, and, in that time, murder S by the dozen, burglaries by the score, crimes of all kinds, to,t;alling thousands, were solved by him, and the perpetrators apprehended, . ' Ifis career was a record of events outrivalling the detective tales of fiction. The cases he solved ranged through every variety of crime known to the police records of t'ne wor1.d. He ran down counterfeiters of :jF1,000 000.00 and more. he unravelled the mysteries of murder where life was Eaken for as lithe as eighty cents." John Wilson Murray was born in Edinburgh, Scotland in 1840. His father was a well-to-do sea captain. When young Murray was five years old the family moved to New York. Six years later his mother returned to Scotland becanse of ill health and took her son with her, placing him in a private school in Edinburgh which he disl-iked intensely. At the age of thirteen he ran away to sea but was brought back after a s:iort voyage to Liverpool. I3.s mother returned with him to the United States and he was enrolled in the Georgetown Academy in Naslzington. He stayed for two years and then decided to run away again to sea. IIe shipped aboard a fxeighter carrying fruit from the West IndLes for a few months and then served on two sailing ships, making one voyage around Cape I-Iorn. Ifis father finally caught up with him and took him back to school. In 1857, at the age of seventeen he ran aww again for the third and last time. This time he enlisted as a seaman in the U.S. Navy and served on t he Great Lakes on the U. S. S. Michigan until the American Civil War broke out in 1861. He was sent to the officers train- ing school in Washington, did well and was commissioned as an officer in the U. S. Navy. Ige served throughout the Civil War, saw plenty of action and also got his first experience working as an undercover man. Mhe~the war was over he resigned from the Navy and entered the U.S. Sacvet Service where he served as a special agent to the Navy Depmtment for two years, It was this experience that decided Murray that he should make a life-time career as a detective. In 1868, at the age of 28 he joined the police force in ibie, Pennsylvania as a detec- tive. His work there soon brought him to the attentf on of of.Cicials of the Pennsylvania Central Railroad. Ile sl-~ortlybecame acquainted with inlfll.iam L. Scott, the railroad magnate, who built the Canada Southern Railroad, now known as the Michigan Central Railroad running through Southern Ontario from Detroit and Nindsor to Port Erie. In 1873 Murray was appointed head of detectives of the Canadian Southern Railroad. 5e was so successful in solving crimes associated. with the railroad that twq years latex he was invited by Sir 0l.iver Mowat, who was then the Attofney-Generlil of Ontario, to become the Inspector of Criminal Investici gation of the Department of Justice. At that time there was nb Provincial Police Force and so for over 30 years Murray was practically a one-man I~rovLncidPolice Force. It is of interest to us that the first case which IvIurray undertook as an employee of' the Ontario Department of Justice dealt wi%h counterfeiting. For a long time counterfeiters had been known to be at work Pn the hen Sound and vicinity. They had grown wealthy and had influential co,nnections. Murray quietly vent to the area and shortly became acqudnted with some of the men who were passing the counterfeit money, bonds and mortgages. He was soon able to arrest the leaders of the gang who included some of the most respectable men in the community. In 1875 Murray handled an investigation,involving a btr- Pettit, a prosperous farmer who distrusted banks and who kept all !xis money in his home in the form of gold coins. One night four armed men broke into his home and stole his fortune which consisted of $IO,SOO in gold coins. Murray was called in and set out on the trail. He found that the gang had rented a wagon in :Iamilton then driven to Brantford wiiere they split up the gold. By tracing tlie gold in tlie places where it turned up Murray learned that the ring leader was Charles MLlls, of Hamilton. Mills fled to Texas but with the help of one of Mills former girl friends Murray was able to luro him back to Canada where hc was proirptly *rested.

Load more

  10

Copy Link