The Old Book Fraud

David George Holt concocted an elaborate fraud in old books. “In e-mails heavily salted with charming, European-seeming malapropisms, he conjured aliases such as elderly Swiss antiquities dealer “Frederik Buwe” and offered precious folios at remarkably low prices, book dealers’ records show. “Dave J. Masd,” allegedly a Holt alias, advertised a vellum leaf from an illuminated mid-13th Century Bible for only $211 and a copy of the Giant Bible of Mainz (1452-53) in good condition, all pages complete, for $224.”