"Yellow Kid" Weil: The Autobiography of America's Master Swindler

by J.R. Weil, W.T. Brannon (Primary Contributor), J.R. Weil

Bilked bankers, grifted gamblers, and swindled spinsters: welcome to the world of confidence men. You'll marvel at the elaborate schemes developed by The Yellow Kid and cry for the marks who lost it all to his ingenuity—$8,000,000 by some estimations. Fixed horse races, bad real-estate deals, even a money-making machine—all were tools of the trade for the Kid and his associates: the Swede, the Butterine Kid, the Harmony Kid, Fats Levine, and others. The Sting (1973), starring Paul Newman and based largely on the story of the Yellow Kid, is entertaining, but is no match for the real deal.

Genres: Biography, Crime, History, Nonfiction, Biography Memoir, Psychology, Autobiography

352 pages, Paperback

First published July 13, 2004

About the author

Joseph R. "Yellow Kid" Weil was a con man in Chicago during the early 20th century.

Reviews

[Wil Wheaton · Rating 4 out of 5]

A really fun and interesting read, if a little repetitive. Weil wrote this with a biographer in the 1940s, about his time as a con man in the late 1800s and early 1900s, and it's fascinating to learn about what he could do because of the way information traveled during those times.

He's an unreliable narrator, as befits a con man, but that's part of the charm of his story. He goes to great lengths to assure us that he never fleeced someone who didn't deserve it, never went after someone who couldn't afford to lose the money, and only targeted people who were looking to score even more money than they already had. He manages to present himself as a good guy who was teaching these marks a lesson, and the reader gets to decide if that's true or not.

[Zachary · Rating 4 out of 5]

"It takes a great deal of boldness, mixed with a vast amount of caution, to acquire a fortune. But it takes ten times as much wit to keep it."

Found this book from 48 Laws of Power, which used several of Yellow Kid Weil's stories to illustrate aspects of Power. The 48 Laws distilled the major points but the full autobiography is still worthwhile. The Spanish Prisoner changed to Mexico ... the stock schemes ... the switches ... the depth, cleverness, and subtlety of the schemes is just astounding.

Also: have to remember the story about the man who wanted hair mattresses and the wife who loved a special perfume. Moments of weakness.

[Sean · Rating 4 out of 5]

The greatest con of all time? I believe it. Weil's scams are so elaborate and creative you just have to shake your head in wonder. I always thought the big scam at the end of The Sting was pure Hollywood, but it doesn't come close to what Weil pulled. The book isn't so much an autobiography as a chronological accounting of Weil's greatest scams, along with some brief stints in jail and his few attempts to run legit businesses. Each chapter detailing a different scam, the book does get a bit repetitive, but it's still highly entertaining.

[Marti · Rating 4 out of 5]

The scams perpetrated in this book were so elaborate that you wonder why the author could not succeed in a legitimate venture? However, every time he tried, he lost everything and had to come up with a new scam.

Weil claims he only ripped off wealthy individuals who were greedy and had the cash to lose. Interestingly, banking in general seemed just about as crooked as a con game, so why not? This was the reason most of the schemes succeeded. Either the victim would be too humiliated to admit they were scammed, or they would immediately be complicit (because most of them thought they were getting something for nothing in a dishonest way).

Some of these scams seemed so far-fetched that it was hard to believe anyone actually fell for them, much less handed over a large amount of cash for them (especially the one about building a training facility for a champion horse that would be swapped for a consistent "loser" (which the winning horse resembled), when it was in fact, the same horse. The other was about a phony machine that could print money by taking an impression from a new bill).

I don't know if people were more trusting then, or the scammers were just that good. Weil and his associates always managed to secure impressive-looking offices, even going so far as to hire extras who would make the place seem busy. They key was to allow the mark to observe how much money was to be made from counterfeit mining certificates via the use of various stooges posing as bank presidents (whose offices they were allowed to "borrow"), until the mark would practically beg to be let in on the action.

Come to think of it, it sounds more believable than The Nigerian Prince scam and people fell for that all the time.

[Llewellyn · Rating 5 out of 5]

If AK Press reprinted the phone book, I would most likely give it 5 stars, but this one is definitely one of their best. Such complex con artistry. Emphasis on the artistry. The cons are so complex, involving so much preparation, that it makes me rethink some conspiracy theories I've heard. Parallels to the financial world abound.

[Cashmere · Rating 4 out of 5]

What a fun read this is!

Before continuing, I should note that I read the 1948 edition of this book and not one of the later editions.

This "true" story is about Weil who was a con man in the United States in the late 19th and first half of the 20th centuries. It is a little misleading to call it an "autobiography" as really what it amounts to is the stories of the various cons he pulled. We learn very little about his personal life and childhood, etc. It's only towards the very end that we gain some glimmers of insight into Weil beyond his cons and what he did after "retiring."

But who cares? Cons have always been a fun and satisfying read for me, and having read and thoroughly enjoyed Maurer's classic, "The Big Con: The Story of the Confidence Man years ago, I think this is a nice companion book to that one. Weil recalls con after con, many of which described would not be possible in today's internet age. But if you enjoy the "art of the con" as portrayed in movies like "The Sting" or "The Spanish Prisoner" you will thoroughly enjoy this book. Just don't expect to read much at all about Weil's life beyond the con games, and do remember that the author himself was a con artist... so even the stories he tells absolutely must be taken with a grain of salt.

That said, this is a very fun and relatively easy read.

[Bob Schnell · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's nice to read a true crime book without any gruesome acts of violence and where the victims probably deserved their fate. "Conman: A Master Swindler's Own Story" an autobiography by J.R. Weil brings us into the underworld of Chicago in the first half of the 20th century. Weil. aka "The Yellow Kid," is a mastermind at separating people from their excess money. He never targets poor people and actually plays the part of Robin Hood when circumstances are right. For the most part, though, he creates elaborate schemes, employing many other shady characters to play parts in pursuit of big pay-offs. It is estimated that over his career he swindled people out of 8 million dollars. He rarely got caught and spent only a few years in prison. His philosophy was that the people he conned were out to be part of a big illegal deal so they were not likely to squeal for fear of implicating themselves. From horse racing "fixes" to insider stock trades and bad land deals, Weil could tempt just about anyone to go for a quick windfall, all the while taking advantage of them for their blind greed.

As I read the book I kept thinking that he had to be the basis for the Hollywood blockbuster "The Sting." A little research shows that the producers of "The Sting" were sued for $50 million for replicating Weil's escapades without consent.

[Ananthch · Rating 5 out of 5]

Titillating tidbits. A highly self-educated man. A lovely old-time style of writing. Too bad Walter Scott had already written his masterpieces, or Weil might have given us Ivanhoe and The Talisman. When he describes the Texas oilfield scam (Man with the Beard), you literally feel like you've been taken back a 100 years to the south, to one of those stately mansions.

If you read this and your self-awareness hasn't improved, watch out!

[Keith · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great stories of the long con.

[Rex Hurst · Rating 5 out of 5]

The autobiography of one of America’s most well-known confidence men. His life of constant crime and cons spanned decades and raked in millions of dollars. According to him, he pioneered or perfected several techniques which were copied to death over the years, forcing him to continuously innovate his scams.

Beginning with selling snake oil in the days of horse and buggies, he moved onto pulling the fake stock swindle, staging fake illegal fights, staging fake fixed horse races, and the fake casino scam. For a lifetime of crime, he spent a total of six years in prison on three separate charges (two of which he claims he was the victim of circumstance), dying penniless in a nursing home at age 100 in 1976.

Like most cons of this era, Weil found it more expedient to rope his victims into a scheme where they thought they were getting something in an illegal activity. This was to prevent the victim from going to the police after they had been swindled, because then they’d have to admit their own intent on breaking the law. And in many cases this style protected Weil from prosecution. Such as in the when he worked a scam at the race track revolving around fixing a race. After he absconded with the money freely given to him what could he be charged with? Not fixing a race?

His moniker, the “Yellow Kid” comes from his love of a comic of the same name about a bald Asian child wearing a yellow smock that bore out his internal thoughts, which appeared in Hearst run newspapers at that time (and gave rise to the phrase “yellow journalism”). There have been many other reasons given by people and biographers, but this is the one Weil sticks by. The story he gives around it is odd, but he claims it is true.

An easy read, the most interesting parts are the bits and pieces of how the justice system was set up in the past and the technology of the past. The last decade of the 19th century and the first two of the 20th were called the golden age of the con man. This was because the criminal codes had yet to catch up with the technology. The wire services ran all across the country, sending messages in Morse code from San Francisco to New York. Thus it was simple to tap a line to send a fake message or to simply have dummy apparatus around that appeared to be receiving a message. Thus you could claim something was happening in another part of the country and it was very difficult for the victim to check.

What sets Weil apart from the others, besides his innovations, was his attention to detail. He stole the identity of a mining engineer who was somewhat well known and had written several books. He had several books rebound with his picture in place of the author to prove his identity. Sometimes he would have fake articles about himself rebound into magazines, then a stooge would replace the local library’s copy with the forgery. It would slip out that he had an article about himself published and the victim would find it on their own. To Weil, the props of his scam was as important as the pitch itself.

Weil shows no remorse for his cons. His opinion was that those who were fooled thought they were getting something through crooked means, thus they had no moral standing to be outraged. The mentality was that you cannot cheat an honest man. But he applied this mentality to himself after he was taken for 10,000 dollars by a pair of female con artists. He was even amused by the fact that he had been taken using the same techniques that he had practiced for four decades.

His own downfall came from two parts, his spendthrift habits. He states that “money was like water in my hands.” He would turn most of his cash over to his wife who would save it. But when she died, he blew through everything. The other part is his own fame. He became too well known as a con man and his several attempts to go legitimate always ended up backfiring due to his past criminal acquaintances or police interference. Of course had he gone legit then he wouldn’t be remembered today.

[Jason · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love con men. I have since I was a kid. In some ways I have idolized them the way that other kids idolize sports heroes or firemen. They have many qualities that I find compelling. It would be easy for me to write how and why I love con men so much, but that would tell you very little about JR Weil and his book. I just thought I should define my subjectivity before I continue.

To be honest with you, as literature, Yellow Kid is not much. As a cultural object, it is much more. The autobiographical elements leave a lot to be desired. Several sentences on his parents and upbringing, a few references to his wife, and a change of geography whenever necessary, that is about it. It doesn’t make a book. This book is something different, an insider’s perspective on some of the most common confidence games in the world.

Just about every chapter, and there are 28, is a framework for a con, and a case study on its operation. Weil claims to have originated all of these games, but that may be gamesmanship. I have no doubt that he ran these games, but he lived in a world of inventive people. Turn of the last century Chicago was a Panacea for the swindle, and they operated from the top of society to the bottom. Even Weil, who spent some years in jail, described the early years as almost lawless. This is the meat of the book.

If it weren’t so old, it would be a textbook for budding cons, but it is not. One finds it hard to believe that these games ever worked as described, but I suspect the kernels continue to work now. After all, I can’t believe that people send money to deposed Nigerian princes, or wire money to friends who suddenly turn up in foreign jails, but they do. I think that is what makes this book remarkable. It is not sinister. It is almost serene. It has been said of Weil that his greatest skill is his ability to read a mark, to carry him along in a way that his alarms never raise. It is hard to believe that his skill could transfer into writing, but some version of it does.

Weil maintains that he never took money from someone who couldn’t afford to lose it. He also says that most of his marks were motivated by the desire to make illicit gains. This lends itself to an idea of morality, but I think that is part of the con, the lovable predator. Weil and all con men are predators, and just like the lion on the savanna there is an unavoidable instinct to make the easy kill, wounded gazelle or greedy glutton, no difference. People who do terrible things always have a mechanism for releasing themselves from guilt. Because of this they get caricatured as plastic and unfeeling, think of Bret Easton Ellis. And if you were going to caricature Weil, you could easily come up with characters in The Sting, but this again is a misdirection. Weil is slippery.

So there is the question of this book as a cultural object. It is an artwork, and those are the terms on which it should be judged. In those terms, it is beautiful, it is carved from a single block; there are no extraneous details. Certainly, it is shaped and requires some suspension of disbelief to succeed, but I cannot think of a work of art that does not require the same, but then again, I love con men, who am I to say.

[Mohammad Ali Abedi · Rating 4 out of 5]

“This desire to get something for nothing has been very costly to many people who have dealt with me and with other con men.”

A while back I read “Catch Me If You Can”, an autobiography about the conman, Frank Abagnale, who operated mainly in the 60s. I wasn’t that fond of the book, because I felt the book, instead of a tell-all kind of book about the inner workings of different cons, was a con itself. It was basically Frank going from adventure to another, and it seemed all extremely fake.

“Lies were the foundation of my schemes. A lie is an allurement, a fabrication that can be embellished into a fantasy. It can be clothed in the raiments of a mystic conception. Truth is cold, sober fact, not so comfortable to absorb. A lire is more palatable. The most detested person in the world is the one who always the truth, who never romances.”

Joseph “Yellow Kid” Weil’s autobiography is much better in understand different cons. Weil worked his con mainly in the end of 19th century and beginning of the 20th. He worked various cons and he talks about the inner workings of them and how he would fool people constantly. The real way he fooled people about of their money is to play upon their greed. Even the richest men are tempted by easy money, and Weil works on that temptation.

“People will tell you that crime does not pay. Perhaps that is right. But it paid me handsomely. I feel that I have lived a thousand years in seventy. Those periods of incarceration – well, they were not always what I would have chosen, but they gave me time to relax, reflect, and catch up on my reading.”

Not to say that I completely believe Weil. Like Abagnale, I figure that conmen can’t suddenly become honest men when they right about their life. Conmen are storytellers first and foremost and I doubt they will ever turn that off. But Abagnale’s book was written at a time when he was promoting himself as a security consultant. He was still relatively young. However, Yellow Kid’s book was written when he was 73, so he didn’t really need to sell much anymore.

Although, speaking of age, here is something fun. While the book seemed like it was written at the end of his life, according to Wikipedia, he actually lived to a 100! He was born in 1875 and died in 1976! As the quote says above, he seems to have been perfectly correct, crime does pay.

[Mehtab · Rating 5 out of 5]

Absolutely loved this. I had heard about a lot of con men but never heard the "Yellow Kid". I came across his references while I was reading The 48 Laws of Power.

I really enjoyed reading this book. It's very neatly written and at no place do you feel like a large amount of unnecessary information is provided to explain anything. And obviously, the whole life story is also just amazing. Two of the best thing I loved about Joseph Weil was

- He never conned an honest man
- He didn't try to justify that what he did was write or something. In the whole book, he accepted that yes, what he was doing was wrong but he did it cause it was fun.

One very interesting thing we see in this book is that how we as a society see all sorts of criminals as equal and then even when they try to do the right thing we just assume that they must be doing something wrong. This eventually forces the person's hand to stay on the wrong side of the road.
In this book we saw that Joseph tried multiple times and with a large amount of investment, to go straight try a legit business but every time people around him just started causing problems for him.

Anyway, reading this was pure bliss and I'll definitely re-read it sometime in the future.

Some of the absolutely amazing things from this book were:

- Moment when de luxe and joseph both thought that the other person was some rich person and tried to draw each other into a con - Chapter 19

- The epitaph his wife suggested i.e

Joseph Weil Lies Under the Ground; Don’t Jingle Any Money While Walking Around.

[Larry Hostetler · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting account of a swindler in his own words. While one does not feel sympathy for him he manages to present the victims of his cons as those who can afford the losses and are guilty of desiring ill-gotten gains while he robs them. And he has a point. If you pay to get a tip on a fixed horse race or counterfeit money or just being greedy perhaps you are complicit in a crime even while being a victim.

I expected a bit different type of con game. The schemes Weil concocted were much more elaborate stings than simple and quick cons. There were some of those, but the stories shares in this book are more about setups for a cast of those who are part of the con than a simple sleight of hand.

One part of the story that successfully elicited sympathy from me were the recountings of several times Weil tried to "go straight." Either through poor judgment or management on Weil's part or through the continued disbelief and rousting of the police, what sounds like honest attempts are thwarted. And when he gets into a legitimate business (banking, believe it or not) he uses it as an opportunity to work another con.

As an insight into life in Chicago in the late 1800s and early 20th century the book also has interest.

But while it was easy reading and interesting, it eventually became a bit uninteresting and as a result I could not give it the fifth star. But the addition of an article by Saul Bellow was a plus.

[RobertS · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this book probably in the mid to late 1960's. I found it in my parents' bookcase, and being a voracious reader from an early age, I gobbled it up. Though that was many decades ago, I've thought about this book quite a bit recently, because of current world events, and was quite surprised to find that other people have actually heard of this book, have read it and posted about it here.

After all these years, I don't remember all of the fine details (I'd like to find another copy and read it again), but I remember being engrossed by the story. Most importantly though, I remember Yellow Kid's comments about his victims: They were all reasonably wealthy, greedy, somewhat stupid, and of low moral rectitude. His victims were almost always aware that what they were doing was not exactly 100% legal, but they were greedy enough that they didn't care. This made it difficult for them to go to the police when (if) they realized they'd been conned. If I might have been somewhat skeptical, at the time, that people could be that gullible, then present day world events have shown that there is no shortage of people willing to believe anything that you tell them, if they believe there's something in it for them.

In other words, it's an accurate commentary on human greed, and nothing has really changed, except for the ever advancing technology that's used to con willing stooges.

Nevertheless, it's a great read.

[Jessica · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars
This was quite a read! It is probable Weil was the biggest con-man in America’s history, and it was fascinating to hear his tales of being a “master swindler.” It was a look into human nature and how confidence schemes often work. Overall, those he conned were greedy people looking for quick, dishonest money, and Weil fleeced them. I don’t doubt that these are still the ways that people con and are ripped off. Weil often had profound thoughts of human nature. He wasn’t a “Robin Hood,” but made a point of taking advantage of those trying to take advantage, and not trying to wipe out poor widows’ life savings. That doesn’t make it right! But it was an eye-opening account!

If you ask me, this book shows it’s better to live with the old adages of, “Give me the simple life,” “Slow and steady wins the race,” and “If it sounds to good to be true, it probably is.”

[Denton · Rating 3 out of 5]

I have a soft spot for AK Press's memoirs of conmen and swindlers - they're fast and fun and always transport me to a Robin Hood like era of American culture, told through the lens of incredibly unreliable narrators.

If you enjoy movies like The Sting or Catch Me If You Can, you could do a lot worse than the Yellow Kid -- it's a bit too repetitive, and I have a hard time believing his victims were quite as nonplussed as he makes it seem, but so it goes. A fun romp regardless.

[Daniel · Rating 3 out of 5]

It was fun to read about the exploits of the "Yellow Kid." I imagine that variants of many of these tricks will still work today but would be much harder to execute with today's speed of communications. I also suspect that today's bankers aren't as foolish (hopefully) as they were back in the day.

[Jesse · Rating 3 out of 5]

Generally pretty entertaining, albeit very repetitive with retelling a of one scam after the next.

[Max Carney · Rating 5 out of 5]

Incredible, I'll definitely read it again.

[Jordan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Finesse at its finest

[Zach Werbalowsky · Rating 4 out of 5]

interesting, repetitive, prescient, the con is still on and america only adapts and evolves.

[TomF · Rating 4 out of 5]

Although not quite a bedside shot at redemption, these recollections of Joe 'The Sting' Weil should still be considered 'too much of a good thing'. There are cinematic levels of adventure here that beggar belief: from conmen fleecing conmen in a parade of party dress and silky subterfuge, to failed escapes ending in slides down oiled lift wires (towards giant enraged victims), and 'seat-of-your pants' improvisations that spin gold out of a mess.

It is possible these tales are on the money, as the rest of Weil's time is spent in the involving minutiae of setting up a job. That side certainly comes across as plausible. He also paints a convincing portraight of the life of a conman - spending big to maintain not just an illusion of respectable wealth, but to fuel the momentum of a life lived on the edge. Planning meticulously ahead, but enjoying the delayed hedonism of success all the more when it comes. What feels less rife with fidelity is his habit of spinning cons as nigh moral actions, exacted exclusively on greedy swine. It's pretty clear that he didn't spend his twilight years as a fund-raiser for charities purely because his criminal persona had been exposed. The man felt guilt. And that's doubtless because his cons also require him to extend the 'help me out' hand of collusion for them to work. (Plus not all his victims were 'Reich colluding' non-patriots and the like - some were just wealthy & trusting old dames. Which in fairness is info he does also share).

Regardless, this is a great slice of history & wonderful delve into the art of the con. He sashays through an era when a sign saying 'Bank' was nigh all you needed to get going in finance & anti-scam laws only protected hicks from out of town. He also shows a talent for innovating legit business practices, demonstrates the 'power of authority', & generally pulls the levers of psychology & society with aplomb. Plus any book that describes a 'telephone headset' inside a guru's headdress, connected to metal heels that interlock into the bottom of a 'meditation couch', is covering all the bases that I want from a 'magical' real-life tale.

4-

[Jason · Rating 3 out of 5]

Yellow Kid’s schemes were quite ingenious & it’s a shame this book wasn’t better written because most of the stories are hard to follow due to skipping back & forth in time and descriptions of the scheme details.

[Elaine · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's hard to read scheme after scheme where someone was tricked out of hard-earned cash. And while many of the victims the author mentions are pretty unsavory characters who have no concerns about breaking the law, there were some dupes that are not so easily pegged as dishonest as the author claims. For instance, there's the early scams where people just wanted to bet on horses at the race track. Weil spends so much time convincing them to go along with the scheme that you really feel sorry for them for falling for it. And the swindle on three spinsters that was set up by a medium was the worst. In this con, the women actually bought land from Weil which he misrepresented as being valuable. They were never looking for an "easy money" scheme like most of the marks, but they were looking for an investment. It was horrible to read through.

I also disliked how Weil seemed to blame the police on his failures to be successful at legitimate business ventures. He had several opportunities to take legitimate work before going to prison, but he always went back to scams. He somehow did not see this as his fault, and at the end of the book he tries to make a case for less restrictive laws on con men like himself!

Aside from the morally corrupt nature of the narrator, it was an interesting and enlightening read.

[Joseph Hirsch · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read another book from a similar time, put out by AK Press, called "You Can't Win," a few years ago, and it always stuck with me. The old-timey language, the rogues' gallery of grifters and drifters...it was a really neat excursion into another time and place. This book wasn't quite as good. The schemes of the con artist in question are quite repetitive, and where Jack Black (author of "You Can't Win") had a knack for characterization and description, Weil's marks/victims are somehow blander, more indistinguishable from one-another. Again, unlike with Black's book, the vignettes here don't coalesce into a larger whole, and end up being redundant and a tad boring.

[T.C. Davis Jr · Rating 2 out of 5]

An old book written before my grandparents were kicking it. I read it for the information, research on the scam artist, con men of the era just after the great depression when such talents soared and the artists of this crime flourished. Today, we still awe at the sophisticated con artist - as long as he/she is conning someone else. Yellow Kid was said to be the king of them all but real king(s) -if any - would never become known.

[Farisyo · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this book. Found myself at times laughing alongside the yellow kid at the misfortune of some of the 'suckers'. The gullibility of humankind in the early to mid 20th century is appalling to say the least!

[Charles · Rating 4 out of 5]

Weil is not a very nice man. He claims he only rips off the rich, I doubt it. His exploits do show great imagination. But, as a self-proclaimed liar, you have to wonder how much of this book is imaginary. Obviously he spent time in the can so the cops believed him. Anyway, great fun this.

[Bartman231 · Rating 3 out of 5]

Clearly the inspiration for the con men of The Sting, with the big con. Very colorful, and entertaining.