History Main / MasterForger

* ''Literature/TheOdessaFile'': Klaus Winzer, a side character, was a calligrapher in his youth before being commissioned into the SS to work at forging Allied banknotes; after the war, he goes to work forging ration coupons for the black market and then forges identity papers for fugitive Nazis.

** The MacGuffin that starts the plot and occasionally is referenced are the "Goat Bills", created in secret inside of the titular castle by the evil branch of the country's royal family with quite the HistoricalRapSheet (being allegedly one of the main reasons TheGreatDepression happened, among others). The operation has been going for so long that the Bills have achieved a legendary status as being virtually impossible to distinguish from the real deal (unless you are just ''[[TheAce that]]'' good at spotting them, like Lupin is) and nobody in the United Nations wants to help bring down the operation ([[CopsNeedTheVigilante until Lupin supplies Zenigata with a reason to reveal it to the world by chasing him through the castle]] and [[BadBadActing "coincidentally" running into the printing room]]) because every government in the world has ordered Goat Bills to screw over their enemies' economies.

* ''VisualNovel/ApolloJusticeAceAttorney'': Drew Misham made and sold forged paintings on the black market and sometimes even forged evidence. Phoenix lost his license when he was tricked into presenting one of Misham's works in court. [[spoiler:In actuality, Misham was just the seller. The true forger was his daughter Vera, who copied the paintings while her father sold them to keep them financially solvent. This ended in Drew's murder and Vera's attempted murder when the true culprit behind the forged evidence sought to cover his tracks.]]

See also EffectiveKnockoff, which the main product of this trope.

* ''VideoGame/GrimFandango'': Chowchilla Charlie claims to be this. You need to get a maritime union card from him in order to get a job on a ship. However, everyone you show the card too will recognize Charlie's handiwork. Luckily, your new captain is farsighted, and won't tell the difference. You also use one of Charlie's tools to print a fake betting stub as part of an elaborate fetch quest.

** The MacGuffin that starts the plot and occasionally is referenced are the "Goat Bills", created in secret inside of the titular castle by the evil branch of the country's royal family with quite the HistoricalRapSheet (being allegedly one of the main reasons TheGreatDepression happened, among others). The operation has been going for so long that the Bills have achieved a legendary status as being virtually impossible to distinguish from the real deal (unless you are just ''[[TheAce that]]'' good at spotting them, like Lupin is).

** The crux of events in ''The Adventures the Three Garridebs'' is the antagonist, dangerous gunman 'Killer' Evans was in a partnership five years before the story, with one called Prescot, which ended when Evans shot him. Released from prison he attempts to get hold of the fortune in Counterfeit notes Prescot had already made. When caught he even claims he should have received a medal, as even the Bank of England couldn't tell Prescot's notes were fakes.

* [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Hofmann Mark Hofmann]] was most famous in the 1980s for uncovering and selling letters from early [[UsefulNotes/Mormonism Mormon]] history, many of which controversially shed new light on the church's founding. Highlights include a letter from founder Joseph Smith saying his son should be his successor instead of Brigham Young (sparking a bidding war between two Mormon denominations), a letter from Smith's wife Emma repudiating his polygamy, and the "salamander letter," claiming that Smith's divine revelations involved a magical white salamander instead of an angel. He also traded in documents from early American history, including letters by founding fathers and a printed copy of the Oath of a Freedman (the first document printed in the Americas). They were all forgeries, but high-quality enough ones to dupe professional document authenticators and even the FBI. It all came undone when he tried to sell a document collection that didn't exist, and people started catching onto them; he killed one of the buyers with a pipe bomb, as well as the buyer's business partner's wife [[SerialKillingsSpecificTarget to make people think it was unrelated to the document deal]]. Hofmann ended up getting injured by one of the bombs, leading to his arrest and conviction for forgery and two murders.

* Mark Hofmann managed to create false rare books and sell them at a price, fooling LDS leaders and philologists.

* ''Literature/TheEmperorsSoul'': Wan [=ShaiLu=] is a master in the FunctionalMagic of Forgery, which transmutes objects by changing their past through {{Retconjuration}}. To manage this, she became an accomplished {{Polymath}} and studied under one of the greatest artists of the age -- and then she's [[RecruitingTheCriminal recruited]] to Forge a soul... [[spoiler: and, against impossible odds, not only succeeds, but improves upon the soul.]]

-->''"I specialized in invitation sheets-- you find stacks of them in storage units, or just thrown away when someone dies with no heirs, so it's easy to find paper the right age. The rest is just altering them, and choosing your subject carefully. I was good at it. I sold hundreds of the things, to dozens of hopeful collectors like your brother. So when I was caught I was a repeat offender quiet a few times over, and quite a few wealthy citizens wanted me gone."''

* ''TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons'': Filth imps are experts at forging documents, which makes other baatezu despise them, leaving the imps to seek employment with Material Plane thieves' guilds.

* ''Film/{{Incognito}}'': In this 1997 film, the main character is an artist who creates fake Rembrandt paintings that his ConMan contact sells for millions on the black market. Not only is he able to recreate the style of the famous painter, he also uses effects like heat to make the paint appear aged and chipped, and sometimes damages portions of the canvas to make it more believable.

* [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Myatt John Myatt]] is an artist with the ability to uncannily create works in the styles of others. He was originally honest about his work and sold them as cheap fakes to the public until one of his buyers realized the paintings were accurate enough to fool experts. He then got caught up in a forgery scheme that became the biggest art fraud of the [=20th=] century.

* Hungarian-born Elmyr de Hory of ''Film/FForFake'' fame was something of a legend in the art forgery world having allegedly made thousands of painting who were (and some claim ''still are'') in some of the most established art galleries in the world. Elmyr's genuine talent, larger-than-life personality, [[UnreliableNarrator outrageous claims]] and [[MultipleChoicePast elusive past]] made him one of the most infamous figures of the 20th century art world. It got to the point where ''forgeries of Elmyr forgeries'' started to appear to capitalize on his popularity, and when he passed away in 1976 the press expressed some doubt if he hadn't just [[HesJustHiding forged his own death]]. Simply put, when it comes to forgers, Elmyr de Hory is in a class of his own.

* Clifford Irving was a novelist and investigative journalist, who made himself famous by falsifying letters from Howard Hughes to provide "proof" for his fake autobiography he claimed Hughes had contacted him to ghost write. Through painstakingly imitating letters Hughes had sent to time magazine, he and several of his artist and writer friends were able to create fakes so authentic they fooled both Osborn Associates, a firm of handwriting experts, and Hughes' companies' own representative Frank [=McCulloch=]. Irving was only caught when Hughes, who had been a recluse for over nearly two decades so no press had been able to contact him, finally spoke out against the false information Irving had published about him.

* ''Anime/LupinTheThird'': In ''Anime/TheCastleOfCagliostro'':

* Hungarian-born Elmyr de Hory of ''Film/FForFake'' fame was something of a legend in the art forgery world having allegedly made thousands of painting who were (and some claim ''still are'') in some of the most established art galleries in the world. Elmyr's genuine talent, larger-than-life personality, [[UnreliableNarrator outrageous claims]] and [[MultipleChoicePast elusive past]] made him one of the most infamous figures of the 20th century art world. It got to the point where ''[[UpToEleven forgeries of Elmyr forgeries]]'' started to appear to capitalize on his popularity, and when he passed away in 1976 the press expressed some doubt if he hadn't just [[HesJustHiding forged his own death]]. Simply put, when it comes to forgers, Elmyr de Hory is in a class of his own.

Whether running a criminal conspiracy, a [[TheCaper high-stakes theft]], a professional espionage operation, or simply trying to get ahead in life, certain resources are essential: sufficient funds, official permits, counterfeit works of art, and so on. But these are all hard (if not impossible) to obtain. So quite often your best option is to make your own. But in these stakes, ordinary counterfeits simply won't cut it. You need them to indistinguishable from the real thing.

* ''Film/TheNinthGate'': {{Double Subver|sion}}ted when [[AntiHero Corso]] has to investigate whether a copy of an extremely rare book (which, according to legend, will allow [[TomeOfEldritchLore the person who deciphers it to summon The Devil]]) is legitimate or a forgery. When he discusses the possibility of it being a forgery with the [[CreepyTwins Ceniza twins]] (a pair of master bookbinders that once owned that copy of the book), the twins dismiss the possibility of it being a fake. They explain that to make a forgery that would fool the experts a forger would need to use all the materials and characteristics that were in use during the 17[[superscript:th]] century when the book was first printed, including unique inks, paper, leather, typeface, watermarks, etc., which are all extremely difficult to get in the late 20[[superscript:th]] century. Even if a master forger could fake or replicate all this, doing so would cost far too much to make the meager profits they would make worthwhile. In the end the book turns out to be legitimate, [[spoiler:but a single critical page has been replaced with a fake to throw off the people trying to decipher the puzzle of the book. And who better to do that than a certain pair of master bookbinders who had the book in their possession for years?]]

* ''Film/TheNinthGate'': {{Double Subver|sion}}ted when [[AntiHero Corso]] has to investigate whether a copy of an extremely rare book (which, according to legend, will allow [[TomeOfEldritchLore the person who deciphers it to summon The Devil]]) is legitimate or a forgery. When he discusses the possibility of it being a forgery with the [[CreepyTwins Ceniza twins]] (a pair of master bookbinders that once owned that copy of the book), the twins dismiss the possibility of it being a fake. They explain that to make a forgery that would fool the experts a forger would need to use all the materials and characteristics that were in use during the 17[[superscript:th]] century when the book was first printed, including unique inks, paper, leather, typeface, watermarks, etc., which are all extremely difficult to get in the late 20[[superscript:th]] century. Even if a master forger could fake or replicate all this, doing so would cost far too much to make it profitable. In the end the book turns out to be legitimate, [[spoiler:but a single critical page has been replaced with a fake to throw off the people trying to decipher the puzzle of the book. And who better to do that than a certain pair of master bookbinders who had the book in their possession for years?]]

* ''Series/ThatMitchellAndWebbLook'': This is parodied with a forger who forges incrediby bad forgeries of £10, which among other things has it spelt Ten Punds and has Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands on. He also has a poor version of Vincent Van Gogh's sunflowers and forged credit cards which at first look convincing, but turn out to be floppy and smell and taste of cheese.