While the conservation department is exiled from the labs, the team - Lynn Campbell, Edward Sakowski, Ben Braithwaite and Martin Young - have been busy in others ways such as attending the New Zealand Conservators of Cultural Materials (NZCCM) conference in Wellington. One of the most interesting tours was a visit to the world renowned New Zealand Police Forensic Document Examination Laboratory. The tour given by chief document examiner Gordon Sharfe showed how money was forged and cheques fraudulently changed and then explained the scientific methods and processes that they used to discover these dastardly deeds.

One example given by Gordon related to Carl Sim and his penchant for painting Goldies. One of his little tricks was to hoard old newspapers that he picked up from antique shops from the Goldie era. He would rip a piece of the old newspaper off, including the date, and stick it on the back of his copy. Unfortunately when his studio was raided by the police he had kept the rest of the newspapers with the missing torn sections. This was a major piece of evidence for the police in proving the Goldie in question was a Sim creation - silly boy. Another interesting fact was that since the introduction of plastic money in New Zealand, forgery of the New Zealand dollar has dropped by 80%.

If anyone is considering a career in forgery perhaps the best place to train is on the job at the NZ Police Forensic Department in Wellington. Training only takes five years.