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The Scheme to Hook Up a King With the Wasp Woman and Other Wild Plans

Khalid Elhassan August 31, 2020 34 min

Susan Cabot - Hussein of Jordan — Susan Cabot and King Hussein. Veja

31. From Penny Ante to Big Time

Chaloner eventually tired of small-time penny ante scams, and decided to get into something far more lucrative: go back to counterfeiting. This time, however, he would do it on an industrial scale. Around 1690, Chaloner resumed counterfeiting, but his days of cloning four penny groats were over. Now, he upgraded his scheme to focus on higher-value coins such as English guineas, and French pistoles, worth about 17 shillings.

Chaloner established a well-oiled counterfeiting ring that produced fake coins in quantity. He combined that with an efficient distribution system to pass them on to contacts in the underworld for circulation. Before long, Chaloner had transformed himself into a wealthy. So he expanded operations by purchasing a nice house in the countryside, where the noise of his coining machines would not attract attention.

Written by

Khalid Elhassan

A lifelong history buff, I developed a particular passion for WW2 history as a child, when I spent hours listening to my grandfather, enraptured, as he recounted his wartime experiences in the British East African Campaign and with the British 8th Army in North Africa.

I graduated with a history BA from George Mason University, then went on to get a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. After lawyering for a decade, I moved to sunny Rio de Janeiro and a less demanding career, opening a tourism agency in Copacabana.

A big chunk of my free time is spent blogging (you can follow me on Quora https://www.quora.com/profile/Khalid-Elhassan ) or freelance writing, mostly about my favorite subject, history.