Word: vrain
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Most fantastic item: a collection of letters (among the correspondents: Plato, Socrates, Cleopatra, Julius Caesar, Charlemagne) for which an incredibly gullible French scientist had paid 150,000 gold francs ($30,000) in the 18605 to a forger named Vrain-Lucas. One of the letters, written in French on old parchment, was from Lazarus to Jesus in thanks for having been raised from the dead. Barely discernible were the words: "See you in Rome, dear Lord...
Vincent Starrett's The Fine Art of Forgery, an essay on human gullibility whose principal hero is French Forger Vrain-Denis Lucas. Spry M. Lucas sold to a contemporary collector (for 150,000 francs): 27 letters from Shakespeare to his friends, "communications from St. Luke and Julius Caesar, from Sappho, Virgil, Plato, Pliny, Alexander the Great, and Pompey. These . . . were somewhat eclipsed by such unusual items as a letter from Cleopatra to Caesar discussing their son Caesarion, a little note from Lazarus to St. Peter, and a chatty bit of gossip from Mary Magdalene to the King...
Danny came to the dusty little Southwestern town of Vrain as a waif. A good-natured mechanic took him in, gave him a job. The local parson worried about Danny's education, but nothing was done about it till Professor W. Winston ("Dubya-Dubya") Burlington came to town on a forensic wave of Armistice Day patriotism, took Danny under his wing...
...Robert Spring was the most expert of autograph forgers, the most blatant was a French contemporary named Vrain Lucas. Within eight years he produced and sold no less than 27,000 autograph manuscripts including a polite little note from Judas Iscariot to Mary Magdalene. His greatest mistake: composing a letter from Cleopatra to Julius Caesar in modern French...