Examination of Questioned Documents from the Beginning of the 20th Century

Batya Foucs, DIFS

In the Israel police Questioned Document lab, documents in question are compared to known samples. In order to determine whether they are authentic, forged or a counterfeit. A challenging case presented two questioned documents from 1916 and 1927 with no known samples as originals for comparison.

The documents were examined using various methods testing the paper, ink, stamps and data in order to confirm their authenticity. Interesting challenges in forensic document examination surfaced throughout the examinations and ended up in a surprising twist.