Drake's Plate of Brass
Francis Drake's brass plaque (English Francis Drake's Plate of Brass ) was a 1933 in California in the context of the Association E Clampus Vitus ( ECV ) planned as a joke fake. In 1579, held possession of California by Francis Drake such a badge is described. This artifact was modeled artfully this description. Contrary to the intention of the forger was recognized by several scientists and important historical institutions as genuine. The forgery was not revealed until some forty years later.
Background
G. Ezra Dane inspired in 1933, one of the founders of the Order E Clampus Vitus, four of his friends to a momentous fake. The quintet, alongside Dane museum curator George Barron, the critic George Clark and the art dealer Lorenz Noll and Albert Dressler, knew the report of the officers Drakes over its stay in California. Thus, had been left nailed to a post at the landing Sir Francis Drake in 1579 in the vicinity of the Golden Gate and the San Francisco Bay a brass plate with a dedication in honor of the Queen of England and a sixpence silver coin with her image.
The plan was the historian and member Herbert Eugene Bolton ECV foist a counterfeit plate and dissolve the whole in the context of a Clampersversammlung. However, only Dane was a member of the Order. Barron was curator at the MH de Young Memorial Museum and got a brass plate at a shipyard. This had been there cut with shears. The Counterfeiters worked the plate several times with a hammer and it glowed several times before and after labeling by Clarke ( who drew with his initials ) and identified by the back with ECV with a visible only under UV light color.
The elaborately lettered and patinated forgery in 1933 hid at the appropriate place and what was not intended, a short time later found the driver of a hunting and further thrown away several miles without attention.
Inscription and the appearance of the plate
Original BEE IT ALL MEN BY THESE knowne vnto PRESENTS. IVNE.17.1579 BY THE GRACE OF GOD AND IN THE NAME OF LORD MAIESTY QVEEN ELIZABETH OF ENGLAND AND LORD SVCCESSORS FOREVER, I TAKE POSSESSION OF THIS KINGDOME WHOSE KING AND PEOPLE FREELY resigne THEIR RIGHT AND TITLE IN THE WHOLE COUNTRY vnto LORD MAIESTIEES KEEPEING. NOW NAMED BY ME ON TO BEE Knowne V ( N) TO ALL MEN AS NOVA ALBION. C G. FRANCIS DRAKE
Translation Allen man is known by those present here. June 17, 1579 By the grace of God and in the name of your Majesty Queen Elizabeth of England and all its Successor should I take this Kingdom to property whose king and people their titles and titles across the country voluntarily to their Majesty Keep cede. This is now named by me and so From now on, all known as Nova Albion. C. G. Francis Drake
The almost rectangular plate containing a hole in which a historical sixpence coin with the image of the Queen would have had space and at the upper and lower edges of two rectangular recesses in order to nail them to a post can.
Recognition as authentic
In 1936 appeared the plate back on and Bolton was offered by a student. This conferred with Robert Gordon Sproul, the university president, and Allen L. Chickering, the board of the California Historical Society. Chickering and Bolton were quick to raise the proud amount of $ 3,500 for the plate and present the find immediately the California Historical Society. The dizziness was therefore no longer dissolve in the framework of the ECT, since the resolution of the fraud would have been associated with a significant loss of image for the institutions involved.
Bolton also asked Professor Cohn Fink, the Dean of the Faculty of Electrochemistry of Columbia University, to verify the authenticity of the plate, which meant that this together with his colleague EP Polushkin surveyed in 1938 and could claim to be authentic.
Those involved in the forgery kept a low profile for decades and tried in vain Bolton - even within the ECV - with indirect hints of his conviction about the authenticity of the plate dissuade. Already in 1937 ( " A absonderlichst booklet for Messinck " ) with detailed descriptions of individual possible sources of error were the ECV a paperback Ye Preposterous Booke of Brasse out, in which they also pointed to the only visible under UV light letters " ECV " on the back of the badge down. On 29 May of the year of ECV also provided a successor to the Drake plaque before: At an event with William Fuller, the then chief of the Miwok Indians and ECV member, this took the alleged donation of California to the Queen of England officially back. After ECV claims U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt found out about it and was pleased that California could remain a member of the United States. The Clamper Edwin grave Horn, a publisher of history books, published an alleged sales letter a " Consolidated bream and Novelty Company" for mass-produced historical brass plaques.
Despite the doubts many people in California held the plate further for real. Doubt on the individual formulations and notations, which led, among other literature professor Reginald B. Haselden, had about Chickering back in various publications. " Francis Drake's brass plaque " was long regarded as California's greatest historical treasure.
Elucidation of forgery
Lorenz Noll began in the 1950s as the last survivor of the forger to explain the details of a small circle and documented. The plaque and elaborately created these copies were meanwhile handed among others Queen Elizabeth II or issued as a gem in the Bancroft Library of the University of California.
Only in the 1970s, the falsification of the public has been known. Re metallurgical studies on the composition, patina and traces of processing now confirmed the earlier doubts as to the authenticity. Cyril Stanley from MIT and among other things, the production of the sheet using modern rolling and cutting with modern tools after due recognizable under the light microscope machining marks. The plate itself had too much homogeneity and to modern composition, which could be detected by gamma spectroscopy and X-ray diffraction. In addition, the patina was too uniform and too little developed to be the result of centuries- long storage. Electrochemically a longer mounting with iron nails would ship in the recesses as well as the electrochemical potential relative to the Sixpence coin must be reflected in a selective corrosion, which was not the case.
From the UV - light color on the back, which should point to ECV, but there was no trace to be found.