Last year, ABAA dealer Patterson Smith of Montclair, NJ, who specializes in rare books on the law, crime & criminal justice, history and gambling, sold a collection of 2,200 books, manuscripts and pamphlets about financial sharpies, charlatans, and their schemes to defraud to John Jay College of Criminal Justice.As the New York Times reported, “The works — including titles like Frauds Exposed by Anthony Comstock, an 1880s anti-vice crusader; 'Yellow Kid’ Weil, the biography of a legendary Chicago swindler; Famous Imposters by Bram Stoker, the author of Dracula; and The Rise of Mr. Ponzi, the swindler’s curious self-published, and self-serving,...
