During the Great Depression, people resorted to all kinds of ingenious and desperate means to survive. Among them was a modest elderly New Yorker, Emerich Jutner, who lived as a trash collector. But Jutner harbored a secret: he was a counterfeiter.

Emerich Juettner also known as Edward Mueller, was born in Austria. At the age of 14, he arrived in New York. He married at the age of 26. To support his family, he began working as a maintenance man and building superintendent.

His job allowed him and his family to live rent-free in the basement of the building where he worked. His wife died in the 1918 Spanish flu pandemic, shortly after giving birth to their daughter Florence. He then became a junk collector.

Unlike professional criminals who aimed for big profits by forging high-denomination bills, Jutner took a remarkably humble approach—he set up a small-scale operation in his kitchen and produced counterfeit $1 bills.

The Crude Beginnings

When the Secret Service received the first of these counterfeit bills, their detectives were stunned. Counterfeiters traditionally prided themselves on the craftsmanship of their work, aiming to produce fake currency indistinguishable from the real thing.

But these $1 bills were the opposite: crude, laughably bad, and almost cartoonish.

The bills were printed on cheap paper, with a poorly drawn image of President George Washington that agents described as resembling “death.” To top it off, even the spelling was wrong—“Washington” was misspelled as “Wahsington.”

At first, the Secret Service thought the counterfeiter was mocking them. Why else would someone counterfeit the lowest denomination of currency, and so poorly at that? But the bizarre nature of the case only deepened their resolve to catch the culprit.

They assigned the case number 880 and thus began the hunt for Mister 880.

An Elusive Quarry

What set Mister 880 apart from other counterfeiters was his restraint.

Most criminals are undone by greed, but not him. Jutner limited himself to spending no more than $15 of fake currency per week. He avoided using his counterfeit bills in the same store twice, ensuring he stayed under the radar.

By the middle of 1938, over 585 of his counterfeit $1 bills had been collected, but investigators were no closer to catching him. They went to extraordinary lengths to track him down. A massive map of New York City adorned the walls of their office, dotted with red pins marking where his bills had surfaced. The pins soon blanketed the city.

The Secret Service printed and distributed 200,000 warning leaflets and instructed over 10,000 store owners on how to detect fake bills. Yet, Mister 880 remained elusive, earning his place as one of the most mysterious and frustrating targets in the agency’s history.

The Accidental Capture

Mister 880’s decade-long career as a counterfeiter came to an abrupt end in 1948, and it was pure chance. A fire broke out in his home, and as firefighters cleared debris, they came across his primitive counterfeiting tools: crude printing plates and scraps of paper used for test prints.

Emerich Jutner, then in his 70s, turned out to be a mild-mannered, law-abiding citizen aside from his counterfeiting. He had never tried to defraud anyone for more than a dollar at a time and used his fake money solely for necessities like groceries.

A Light Sentence and a Lasting Legacy

Given his age, the minor sums involved, and the unusual circumstances, the court showed leniency. Jutner was sentenced to just one year and one day in prison and fined $1—a sentence as modest as his crimes. After serving four months, he was released on parole.

Despite his crimes, Mister 880 became a legend.

His charm and ingenuity captured the public’s imagination. In 1950, his story inspired the film Mister 880, starring Edmund Gwenn as the lovable counterfeiter. Ironically, the film’s success earned Jutner more money than all his counterfeit bills combined.

Why Mister 880’s Story Endures

Mister 880’s tale is more than just a quirky chapter in criminal history. It’s a story of resilience, creativity, and an unusual brand of morality during one of America’s toughest periods. Jutner’s approach to counterfeiting was so modest and peculiar that it has cemented his place as a counterculture icon—a reminder that not all criminals fit the typical mold.

Even today, Mister 880 remains a unique figure: the world’s most endearing counterfeiter. His legacy lives on as a testament to the human spirit’s ability to adapt and survive, even under the harshest conditions.


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