Murder Among the Mormons - Netflix
 

Very interesting 3 part show, true story that some may recall taking place in the 80s in Salt Lake City. All about collectors of rare historical documents and one man's amazing forgeries that fooled the FBI, the LDS church, and all sorts of leading experts. The lengths this guy went to to forge historical documents was amazing. Babe Ruth fake signed balls and baseball cards would have been a walk in the park for this guy. And this was before everyone had a computer and laser printer and modern technology. Really left me wondering how much of the signed material in our collecting realm drawing massive prices is really just the fruits of someone else's amazing fraud.

I caught this series the other day. I loved it. I was very surprised to see how the collecting world factored in to such a wild story.

Yeah, binged it in one night. I was skeptical based on the trailer and figured it was going to be another Netflix documentary that was way longer then it needed to be, given the material. The Cecil Hotel one, being the most recent example. Glad to be wrong.

A really great example of a likable sociopath.

I appreciated the detail they went into with the forgeries in the 3rd episode, though people not in the collectibles world, might have thought it too much information.

There was one particular document they showed, and as soon as they showed it, I thought, that's going to be the piece to take him down...........and it was. Wonder if anybody else had the same thoughts.

The Oath of the Freeman?

To be honest, I knew that guy was a fraudster from the start. It still blows my mind how badly people want to believe a good story. When they started talking about how this one random guy had managed to track down multiple needle in a haystack documents I knew there could be only one explanation for how he managed to always be in the right place at the right time.

Yup, that's the one.


Yeah, I figured he was a crook from the beginning, but that's the one I looked at and went to myself............if this guy doesn't get busted for that, he never will.

Reeked of desperation.

Looked like a piece of old reproduction money you'd get out of a Stamp company ad when you were a kid.

Didn't surprise me the forensic document examiners (including the FBI) were fooled by him. It was the actual historians who crossed over into the forensic aspects that uncovered his shenanigans, and figured out that sh#t just didn't make sense.

Similar to how it shakes out in our hobby. The forensic document examiners are pretty much useless.

That he was faking stuff didn't surprise me.

Spoiler Alert below:






Not knowing the story ahead of time..........that he actually turned himself into a facsimile of a domestic terrorist, including blowing himself up, just to try and hide his "hobby" crimes........and then followed it up with such a detailed confession, kind of blew me away.

The ego of this guy..................unbelievable.

One thing that really stuck with me from the show was one of the historians made a comment about “how we all wanted to believe what he told us”. Collectors suspending disbelief because you want the amazing to be discovered, get a huge rush from it, and don’t ask the hard questions. I see the same thing in our realm. 25 pristine cracker jacks appear out of nowhere with a story that they were discovered in an attic somewhere under a trunk, and the guy who found them
Wants to remain anonymous, and they are 105 years old and look like they were printed yesterday and never in a box of caramel candy. And an AH writes item up with reverend tones and everyone oohs and Ahhhs. Instead of taking a hard look. I think this is a blind spot many of us have.

Definitely. It was kind of scary too that the FBI and leading forensics people could be so literal in their examinations. This paper is old. This ink looks old. The letter must be real. Didn't leave me feeling too confident in the event I needed their help.

Yeah, it is scary that nearly every "document forensic examiner" that has been discredited in our industry, are used regularly as courtroom witnesses and "experts".

You've got me hooked! I'm gonna have to watch.