David Gee What Did He Really Copy

Heads I Win page 74:

Gee paused. A shadow of anxiety passed briefly over his normally placid, smiling face. "There's a-lot of trouble up at the Mint, you know," he said. "Osbourne, the new Controller, has recalled all the decimal patterns, and had them remilled in the presence of a Commonwealth officer."
If Skinner wondered why the recall of the decimal patterns should concern Gee, or indeed why any "trouble" at the Royal Australian Mint should concern him, he did not say so. Instead, he resumed examining the amazing collection Gee had produced, among which was the rare florin he had come to Sydney to negotiate about. This was a 1909 coin, with the head of King Edward VII on one side and a map of Australia on the other. Gee had two of them. On one the map of Australia was merely an outline; on the other mountains were shown in relief. Examining the coins with a dedicated collector's interest, Skinner asked: "Where did you get them?"
"I got them from Mr H," said Gee. "He obtained them for me when he was in England."
Skinner did not know it at the time, but the 1909 florins which he so admired had an interesting history. Like many other rare coins in Gee's collection, they had never seen the inside of a mint. That is, not the inside of any official mint.

According to The Royal Mint (IBSCC, Australia Pattern Florin 1909 (Silver) in Counterfeit Report December 1979, No. 263, December 1979):

On the 15th June, 1909, the Colonial Secretary received a cable form the Governor General of Australia asking him to contact The Royal Mint about the preparation of dies for a proposed issue of distinctive Australian florins, shillings, sixpence and threepences. The designs specified in the cable were, for the obverse, the Royal effigy and, for the reverse, a map of Australia with the word, "Australia", superimposed. On the 23rd June The Royal Mint received Treasury approval to prepare the dies and sketch of the proposed reverse designs was sent to the Colonial Office the next day. At the same time The Royal Mint informed the Colonial Office that it was proposed to use the standard crowned effigy and the inscription, "King and Emperor". On the 8th July the Colonial Secretary received a cable from the Governor General approving the Mint's proposals. By the 6th August, 1909, the florin matrices had been completed reverse punches were almost ready.

The Adler coin has the wrong obverse and I would contend my Gees show that Gee had a crack at the right obverse but abandoned it because, even though he had a believable reverse at the time, his proper obverse was still crude.

Solution: Just grab a die from his stock down at the Library.

This is interesting.
I asked the State Library if the Kangaroo Office pieces they have are counterfeits by Gee's.
I find it disturbing they have the coin collection they have and no dedicated staff who deal with it. I feel Dixson would not approve.
Anyway; here is the response.

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Thanks for your question "Are the Counterfeit Kangaroo Office 'gold' pieces compliments of David Gee?"

We do not have dedicated staff who deal with numismatics collections anymore, so I cannot tell you in short whether these are David Gee's counterfeits or not. This would require access to files which may be accessible once staff return from Christmas leave.

David Gee stole coin dies from the Dixson collection between December 1 1966 and December 31 1971. See the attached article in the Sydney Morning Herald in 1979.

According to the book Heads I win : the true story of David Gee, Australia's most audacious coin forger / Jeffrey Watson, Don Thomas and Jack Bennett. | Collection - State Library of NSW he stole "1887 and 1902 2 pounds and 5 pounds gold coin dies" p.122

The Kangaroo office pieces came into the Library with the bequest of Sir William Dixson in 1952.
"Sir William Dixson (1870-1952) built his numismatic collection over many years. He acquired entire collections, including that of Dr Arthur Andrews who compiled a handbook of Australasian tokens and coins (Sydney : Govt. printer, 1921)."
This handbook is now online and it mentions the Kangaroo Office coins but does not have any further information as to your question, see Australasian tokens and coins (1921 edition) on Open Library.
Australasian tokens and coins (1921 edition) | Open Library
I note that the catalogue record says that Jim Noble described them as counterfeit in 2012 Item 0680: Counterfeit Copy of Kangaroo Office 2 Ounce, Piece Dated 1853 | Collection - State Library of NSW,

I did find some Sir William Dixson correspondence relating to coins in our manuscripts collection DL Add 53 Various documents collected by Sir William Dixson regarding coins, tokens, medals, etc., 1823-28 July 1947 | Collection - State Library of NSW including some brief mentions of the Kangaroo office coins in a flyer called Australian Tokens by Chitty, but I don't think this answers your question, it might only go to prove that Chitty thought the coins were legitimate.

Also while reading Heads I win, I found one mention of the Kangaroo office coin on page 13, which said that one of these very rare original kangaroo pieces ended up in the collection of King Farouk of Egypt and "it was this very kangaroo piece which the young David Gee, unbeknownst to his father, mortgaged some of his family property to buy" in 1948. I have attached page 5 and page 13 which notes this interesting story although it doesn't answer your question.

If I am able to obtain any further information when staff return from leave next week I will let you know.

Regards
Kathi Spinks
Information Request Service

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Do you think this bloke would pull a big enough crowd to make it worth engaging him to talk; would he have new material?
Word is there is some footage of Gee somewhere.
Lots of people regret not talking to Gee before he passed away.
This bloke isn't getting any younger.

Still a hot item.
Item was $200 opening bid OR just buy it now for $260.
Seems someone didn't want to take any risk of being outbid.

Heads I Win
Page 93 says "The bank officials could hardly have been expected to know that the gold tokens of which Gee professed to be so proud had not been made by W G Taylor in Melbourne in 1852."

On page 92 it says Burleigh Heads is about 400 miles from Sydney.

Page 74 says the 1909 florin obverse was going to be the uncrowned King.

Those are just a few examples.
Taylor is not in Melbourne; I think that is claimed elsewhere as well.
1852 is not right.
It is 500+ miles from Sydney to Burleigh Heads
The 1909 florin was to have the crowned King according to correspondence from The Royal Mint.

It just goes to show the book has errors.
If the coin is in the Farouk catalogue for the 1954 auction and Gee buys it then the book is not accurate.

so in 1979 he was 49, in 1948 he would have been 18. Doubt any bank would let someone under 21 back then sign mortgage documents.

Australian Coin Review March 1979