A Ted Wilford Mystery, no. 6 - The Counterfeit Mystery

This sixth Ted Wilford mystery was not overly exciting - however, it was definitely a product of its time!  Of course, the entire series is a product of its time (no cell phones, no computers, etc.), so when reading the books, I have to remind myself of that fact.  However, just because it is a story out of time does not mean that it can't be exciting, or that it shouldn't be enjoyable from the first page.  But I have discovered that these Ted Wilford mysteries are sort of hit and miss - some are really good, while some are not quite that good (and the mystery not overly engaging).  Sadly, this one falls into the latter category.

The Counterfeit Mystery is set during the summer following his graduation from high school and just before he is ready to leave for college. He doesn't have much work at the newspaper, and just when he thinks he will have a lot of free time the last few weeks of his summer vacation, he gets a call from Mr. Dobson, the editor at the town newspaper.  Along with newcomer Nancy Lindell (who happens to be he niece of the newspaper's secretary), Ted is brought into the editor's office to meet Mr. Woodring - a salesman set to introduce a whole new concept to Forestdale - trading stamps!  I had to smile when I read this, as I realized that most people I know today would have no idea what trading stamps are (and no, it doesn't mean collecting postal stamps and trading them as you would baseball cards or comics!).

For those who don't know, trading stamps were stamps that a person could collect every time they went shopping.  For every dollar you spent, you earned a certain amount of stamps.  You collected the stamps in books, and when you had a certain number of books, you could redeem them for various things - from dishes, to utensils, to pots and pans, to toys, to any number of items.  The more an item was worth, the more books of stamps were required to be redeemed to get it.  Additionally, you could purchase an item using both stamps and money - for instance, if you wanted a bicycle, and it cost you 250 books of stamps, but you didn't want to wait that long - sometimes, there was a special offer, and you could get the bicycle by redeeming 100 books of stamps plus $100 (that's just an example, so don't go trying to go search and see if that is accurate).  I can remember back in the day when I was a kid, my mom collected Green Stamps, but I don't remember if she ever had enough to redeem them for anything (she probably did, and I just never paid attention, as I was too worried about toys and Nancy Drew books LOL!).

In any event, Ted doesn't seem thrilled with the whole concept, but Mr. Woodring convinces the paper's editor, who agrees to endorse it.  Plus, Mr. Dobson has volunteered Ted's services to act as his assistant while he is in town trying to drum up business for the stamp sales. Ted chooses to use the opportunity to keep an eye on Mr. Woodring and make sure the entire thing is on the up-and-up.  It ultimately pays off, since the stamps that start showing up are a purple shade, while the original stamps that Mr. Woodring showed Ted and the others in Mr. Dobson's office were blue! Is Mr. Woodring counterfeiting the stamps, or is something else going on?

In the meantime, Ted gets to know more about Nancy and discovers that she has come to town for an ulterior motive. It seems her grandmother makes mention in some of her letters of a town named Freeport in the state, but it seems no one has ever heard of it!  Neither Ted nor Nancy can find any mention of it in the newspapers or other books in the local library, and even some of the older townsfolks have never heard of it.  How could a whole town disappear?

 The counterfeit stamps part of the mystery is rather tame, and the clues to that pretty much fall into Ted's lap without him actually having to look for them (except for when Mr. Woodring disappears, then Ted has to take action to actually hunt the man down).  His and Nancy's efforts to locate the ever elusive Freeport seems to find them doing active clue-hunting, but to no avail.  And, like pretty much every children's mystery story written, the two mysteries are eventually determined to have a connection, and solving one leads to the solution of the other.

The one element of this story I did find somewhat interesting was Ted and Nelson's trip to Hobotown, an area of the city where the hobos tended to congregate and set up temporary "homes." They are looking for Mr. Woodring, and the clues lead them to this community of hobos, and it was rather intriguing to see how author Norvin Pallas portrayed the people. Pallas wrote them as a tight-knit group of men who looked out for one another, had a code of honor, and did not tolerate outsiders; yet, the do decide to help Ted in his mystery, providing a very important clue to help him solve the case.

I only have two more books from the series - books 7 and 11.  While 8 of the books in the series have been reprinted in paperback editions, for whatever reason, the remaining 7 books are only available on e-readers, which I refuse to get.  So, once I read those last two books, then my reading of Ted Wilford mysteries will have reached its end...

RATING:  7 purple cows out of 10 for bringing back memories of my youth and my Mom with an outdated program that I hadn't thought of in years!