Extra Credit

In Allentown, Pa., five teen-agers have been charged with forgery in a scheme involving hundreds of counterfeit $1 and $5 bills that were printed in their high school shops. The extralegal, extra-credit work began when a junior at William Allen High School fashioned his aunt a novel Christmas gift: a "money tree," fluttering with $5 bills the boy had run off on the school's press. The boy's uncle promptly destroyed the present. But some of the artful student's classmates swiped hundreds of the spurious notes.

Meanwhile, a sophomore student at nearby Lehigh Valley Vocational-Technical School printed up 300 false $1 bills on his own. He even took the precaution of including the legend "This Is Not Legal Tender" on his counterfeits.

When the counterfeit currencies began appearing in local retail stores and restaurants--at least 36 fake bills were spent in all--somebody called the cops. (Finally even the U.S. Secret Service joined the investigation.) Allentown police arrested the bill passers--but not the two high school boys who had created the bogus scrip--and turned their cases over to juvenile authorities. The police at least gave the budding young printers good marks for their technically criminal craft. Said Lieut. Ronald Neimeyer: "The bills looked good. The quality and the color were not great, but they were absolutely perfect in every other respect." Maybe Johnny can't read, but he can print.

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