Elderly NYC junk collector counterfeited $1 bills for nearly a decade using crude zinc plates and a hand press, evading the Secret Service until 1948.
Key Takeaways
Juettner’s bills were obviously fake: wrong paper, poor ink, spelling errors, but $1 denominations attracted almost zero scrutiny from cashiers or customers.
He released only a few bills at a time across diners, bars, and street vendors, avoiding the volume patterns that trigger professional counterfeiting investigations.
The Secret Service opened case file 880, distributed 200,000 warning placards to 10,000 stores, and ran the most expensive $1 counterfeit investigation in their history.
Discovery came not from surveillance but from schoolboys finding buried zinc plates and unspent bills in a vacant lot after a neighboring apartment fire.
Sentenced to one year and a day, paroled after four months, fined $1; later earned more from the 1950 film “Mister 880” than from counterfeiting itself.
