Simulated Forgery
Definition
Forgery drawn while looking at a genuine model. Shows slow execution, pen lifts, hesitation, tremor and patchwork retouching.
- Method
- Drawn while viewing a genuine signature or model
- Execution speed
- Slow, with visible pen lifts and hesitation
- Line characteristics
- Tremor and patchwork retouching
Common questions
How does simulated forgery differ from a traced forgery?+
Simulation is freehand copying while looking at the model, producing natural line variation with hesitation marks, whereas tracing follows the model's outline directly, often through an indented or transferred guide line, giving a mechanically uniform stroke path.
Why do pen lifts and retouching indicate simulation rather than genuine writing?+
Genuine signature production is a rapid, practiced motor skill executed with continuous strokes; a forger drawing an unfamiliar signature pauses to check the model, which shows up as interrupted strokes, tremor, and touch-up work absent from an authentic signature.
Related terms
- Anonymous Writing
- A document whose author is concealed by design, ranging from threat and ransom letters to poison-pen office mail. Authorship attribution combines handwriting...
- Block-Letter Conversion
- Switching from cursive to block capitals to suppress connecting-stroke habits. Spacing, proportion and i-dot habits often survive.
- Disguised Writing
- Writing in which the writer has deliberately altered their habitual features to prevent identification; commonly involves changed slant, block capitals, opposite hand,...
- Freehand Forgery
- Forgery produced without any model of the genuine signature. Easy to detect because total morphology mismatches the genuine.
- Hand Change
- Writing with the non-dominant (usually left) hand. Produces awkward, angular, tremulous strokes with low fluency; the writer's habitual letter designs still surface...
- Lifted (Transferred) Forgery
- Genuine signature physically transferred from one document to another, classically by chemical lift, now by scanner-and-printer or photo-edit transplant onto a fabricated...
- Line Quality
- The overall fluency, rhythm and pressure variation of a stroke. Genuine writing has smooth, rhythmic, pressure-modulated lines; forgeries show tremor, blunt starts...
- Signature
- Psychologically expressive behaviours that go beyond what's needed to complete the offence: posing the body, ritual acts, taking trophies, leaving messages. Signature...
- Slant Change
- The commonest disguise: a right-handed writer with natural right slant deliberately writes with left or vertical slant. Holds for short stretches; idiosyncrasies...
- Traced Forgery
- Forgery produced by tracing over a genuine signature placed under thin paper or on a light box. Outline matches genuine too closely,...