Constantine Christodoulou. A notorious counterfeiter of the early 20th century.

Constantine Christodoulou. A notorious counterfeiter of the early 20th century.

From an insignificant "Alakintiris" of Derinia, to a notorious "Costodoulos” of Athens.

Constantine the forger alias Alakintiris was born in the small village of Derinia just on the outskirts of Famagusta shortly before the end of the Ottoman rule in Cyprus (1878) Constantine must have been born most probably between the years 1860 - 1880

Constantine seems that he left his village at an early stage of his life and he was first settled in Varosha and then in Athens in the last years of the 20th century.

Constantine was forgotten over the time by his co villagers and all it remained in their memory and propagates as a legend to this day, is his nickname “Alakintiris” and the pranks of his childhood.

As the legend goes Alakintiris was a cunning guy who liked to deal with conjuring tricks, and building models of ancient amphorae and other pottery.

After he made the pots he buried them in the ground and asked his neighboring kids to urinate on top. This procedure lasted for some time, until the "aging" of the objects.

Alakintiris then dig them out and sold them as ancient to unsuspecting and gullible customers.

These were the pranks of Alakintiris in his village but seemed very valuable in his later action in Greece and throughout Europe.

It seems that Alakintiris leaving for Athens took with him one of his nephews, Kyriakos.

Kyriacos who we will later see his role in this story, run an antique shop at Monastiraki Athens. His antique shop operated at least until the end of the 60s.

 Alakintiris living in Greece had to ennoble a bit his peasant name. So the Cypriot Konstantis Chatzittooulis became Constantine Christodoulou.

The life and activity of Alakintiris in Athens, it is not known to anyone in his village, nor to his distant relatives.

The nature of his action is to be learned today through the literature of that time.

According to the literature, Constantine Christodoulou came from the village of Verinia (Derinia) in Cyprus and settled in Greece in unknown time, but certainly before the end of the 19th century, since he was active in Athens between 1900 and 1914.

Constantine Christodoulou worked in an antique shop in Athens, where he came into contact with ancient coins and other artifacts.

Through his occupation Constantine got to know in detail the ancient coins of Greece, which served to his forgery.

Professor John Svoronos who at the time was director of the National Numismatic Museum, in his book «Journal International d'Archéologie Numismatique» says, Constantine Christodoulou visited him in 1900 in order to give him some ancient coins as a donation to the museum. Constantine skillfully tricked him and took some other ancient coins from the collection of the museum.

In another report of Professor Svoronos, describing the quality of Christodoulou’s forgery mentions that these were made in detail, so that even the chemists of the time had difficulties to verify their authenticity. Even the weight was exactly the same as of the real coins.

According to this professor Christodoulou copied more than 500 different ancient coins (mostly coins from northern Greece) which he mixed with genuine coins and sold them after juggle fooling his customers.

Professor Michael Tiberius in his book "Archaeology" says that Constantine Christodoulou was one of the most famous coin counterfeiters of the 19th and 20th century.

From other sources of information we learn that, in the early 20th century lived and flourished in Athens, the notorious and most capable counterfeiter of the time, the Cypriot Constantine Christodoulou.

The same sources inform us that, when Constantine Christodoulou stopped working he visited all the major cities of Europe, where he sold his counterfeit coins.

Arriving in London he managed to sell the coins to the British Museum. The museum operators were impressed by the rarity of the coins and bought them for the sum of 10,000 GBP.

A few days later, Constantine was arrested by the police and he was taken to court where his cunning proved him innocent.

From another source we learn that Christodoulou was called "Costodoulos" by the Bulletin on Counterfeits. Others called him "Costas" because he was very tall.

The «COINage» magazine in its April 1967 issue published an article about Constantine Christodoulou and his Cretan assistant Yannis Garoufalakis.

That article refers to an Athens Police report stating that when Constantine Christodoulou died, his collection of coins were confiscated and stored in a safe at the National Museum of Coinage.

Then Garoufalakis with Christodoulou’s nephew Kyriacos took legal actions to secure the treasure as being Constantine’s legal heirs. With an apparently genuine certificate, dated January 5, 1939 the two of them became holders of that treasure, consisting of 13 genuine ancient coins, more than 8 pounds of counterfeit coins and 101 coin manufacturing dies.

According to the same report, the attachment should be done just before 1937 since according to the certificate, the two beneficiaries won the legal battle on 12 July 1937.

In the same article there are references to the possible date of Constantine Christodoulou’s death. The American Rear Admiral O.H. Dodson says Christodoulou could have died in 1914 year when he ceased of manufacturing other coins.

Professor Svoronos speculates that Constantine Christodoulou must have died in 1914.

Professor Tazedakis in his article in "Monetary Chronicles" claims that Christodoulou continued his activity until 1944 and probably died in the mid50s.

Based on Garoufalaki’s certificate, Christodoulou must have died a couple of years before 1937 since that was the year when they won the legal battle to secure the treasure.

It is worth mentioning that Constantine Christodoulou never found guilty of his actions and his name is recorded in most books dealing with the counterfeit coinage.