The Cheat with the Ace of Diamonds, by George de la Tour, c. 1635. Louvre Museum, Paris.

Swindle & Fraud

Volume VIII, Number 2 | spring 2015

Purchase

Preamble

Paper Moons

By Lewis H. Lapham

Americans have a genius for the artful dodge, but also an infallible willingness to play the fool.

Death in the Sickroom, by Edvard Munch, 1893. Wikimedia Commons / Munch Museum.

Essay

Rogue Wounds

By Daniel Mason

Playing ill or feigning madness has been a con for hundreds of years. But can a fake sickness become a real sickness?

Map

Land Grabs

False claims and shady real estate.

View

Miscellany

Joseph Smith and other Mormon church leaders drew up articles for the Kirtland Safety Society Bank to provide capital to the burgeoning economy of Kirtland, Ohio, in 1836. Unable to obtain a bank charter, they printed banknotes as the Kirtland Safety Society Anti-Banking Company. The notes were used as tender. The bank failed during the Panic of 1837; holders of the notes were unable to recover their face value, and Smith then fled to Missouri to avoid arrest.