The conspirators found a number of ways of trying to tip off Bolton without coming forward. V. L. Vander Hoof, a fellow Clamper and Berkeley professor, made a spoof of the plate a few weeks after the announcement of the find, hoping to show Bolton that modern tools could make a plate that looked remarkably like the "real" plate. Clamper Edwin Grabhorn, a Western history publisher, published a spoof letter from the "Consolidated Brasse and Novelty Company" offering a "special line of brass plates" guaranteed to "make your home-town famous."