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Message:: [QUOTE="Chris P, post: 1775750, member: 56863"]Well, I hope you still check this forum, here is some more information-  he also did quite a few ancient coins, it appears.  Carl Wilhelm Becker (1772-1830) was one of the most prolific and accomplished counterfeiters of the 19th century. As early as 1806 he was engaged in the practice of manufacturing false coins and other antiquities, apparently as a adjunct to a trade in genuine antiquities. His market was the wealthy princes of Europe, who filled their cabinets of curiosities with Becker’s work. Although Becker was periodically accused of forgery, he defended himself by claiming his productions were “instructive” in nature, and never sold with the intent to deceive. Notes found in his diary after his death suggest this was not quite true. Becker’s death in April 1830 left his family with little money and a quantity of forged coin dies. From these dies, sets of coins were struck in a lead-tin alloy (actually a poor quality pewter) and sold to collectors and institutions. At some point Becker’s family sold the dies to the Saalfeld Museum, from whence they finally were given to the Kaiser-Friedrich Museum in Berlin in 1911.  Here is a link:  <a href="http://www.cngcoins.com/Coin.aspx?CoinID=97894" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="http://www.cngcoins.com/Coin.aspx?CoinID=97894" rel="nofollow">http://www.cngcoins.com/Coin.aspx?CoinID=97894</a>[/QUOTE]