Speculative fraud hypothesis

[asteckley]

...My chief problem with most hoax theories is that the amount of effort required makes the proposition that it was made as a hoax to fool someone gullible out of money stupid: a fraudulent actor simply finds someone more gullible to con, not spend a year's worth of scribing effort to create a fraudulent artifact. Such forgeries do happen, but when the amount of money thus received is tremendous - like an art forgery. The manuscript, to my mind, doesn't fit this criteria.

What do you consider a "tremendous" amount of money?

I believe Lisa Fagin-Davis also said, in her recent UPenn seminar, that the idea of it being produced as a con to sell to a wealthy gullible buyer was non-credible. (Apologies if my memory on that is wrong.)

If you believe the theory that the Marci/Kircher letters refer to the VMS, then you presumably also accept that the manuscript was -- or even just could have been -- bought by Emperor Rudolf II for 600 ducats. That's the equivalent of roughly $200,000.   That's a LOT of Starbuck's coffee (or if you have my wife's coffee addition, it is about 5 year's worth.)

That pretty much defies any speculations that the Voynich could not have been produced as a fraud for profit.