Abraham Van Lier

[Malcolm33]

   I think this is quite funny.     Twenty-Five years ago I used to get the Images of War magazine.  In one issue there was a sample ration book in the name of William Herring and sample identity card in the name of Abraham Van Lier.     When you google either of these names a host of pages come up from people who have found one of them in a deceased grandparents documents and they think they have a family connection.
   Actually someone probably does for an Abraham Van Lier comes up in Free BMD having died in Willesden in 1956 and he married a Beatrice Besznak in 1917 in Wandsworth.   I don't see a birth so guess that his family would have come from Europe in the late 1800's.

[david 57]

Hi,
I have recently found the original documents cited in your post behind the mantlepiece in my house and have no idea how they got there. Photos of both documents appear online so they must have been photographed before they disappeared behind the mantlepiece.
It's a complete mystery to me!

David.

[Top-of-the-hill]

  Welcome to RootsChat. You are really going to have to do some delving now into previous occupants of the house!

[louisa maud]

What about 1921 census and 1939 registration.  LM

[bbart]

Dover Express  03 February 1989

Ration scare
Police this week were trying to find the owner of two wartime documents -- a ration book and an identity card - found in the Elms Vale Road area.
They were in mint condition and, it was thought, might have been stolen from a collector.
The identity card, purporting to be issued in 1943, was in the name of Abraham Van Lier of Greenford and the ration book had been issued to William Herring of Mitcham in 1941.
Then, when I got home, I found the two identical documents on the floor.  Bewildered, I sat and thought.
Then the penny dropped.  The two "lifelike" documents had fallen out of the Images of War that has just gone on sale!
Police investigations were called off!

The page this appears on has a title at the top, "Expressman's Notebook", so it is all random little stories, but I don't quite understand who the "I" is, as in the author of the story.  And is the author meaning they are replica documents, or just fake samples?   

I'm guessing the prior owner of David57's house was the author? 

EDIT  Oooh.  I was thinking the opening poster meant there were images of the documents to show an example of the cards.... he must have meant the samples were actual pieces of separate papers.  In which case, there may be many more homes with these "documents" lying around in drawers etc.  Sometimes it takes me a bit....