This is Lee Habib, and this is Our American Stories, and we tell stories about everything here on this show, from the arts to sports and from business to history and everything in between, including your

stories, send them to our American Stories.com.

They're some of our favorites.

We love telling you quirky stories from our history here on the show, and this one comes

to you from Bill Breke, a friend from New Hampshire.

It's a story of the best, worst counterfeiter in American history.

Emerich Jutner, also known as Edward Mueller, who lived near Broadway and West 96th Street in Manhattan,

eluded the counterfeiting laws from 1938 to 1948, longer than any other

maker of the queer in American history. The first 63 years of Judner's life were upright

and respectable. Short, blue-eyed, white-haired, mustachioed, and blessed with a winning, if toothless grin,

Jutner had learned the rudiments of photo engraving in his native Austria. After emigrating to America

at 13, he worked as a building superintendent while tinkering with numerous unsuccessful inventions.

With his children grown, the newly widow Jutner retired in 1937 to the Upper West Side,

where he lived with his mongrel terrier.

He worked as a junk man, picking up discarded appliances and old tires from vacant lots with a push

cart.

But he wasn't making enough to live on and soon found himself nearing destitution.

So, using his ancient engraving skills, he photographed a dollar bill and recorded the images

on sensitized zinc plates, which he then etched in an acid bath.

With a little retouching and a small hand press, he was ready to make more money by, well, making more money.

The U.S. Secret Service, which has chased counterfeiters since 1865, protecting presidents became part of their

mission only in 1901, first noticed Jutner's activity when a phony $1 silver certificate

...