WHY COUNTERFEITERS FAIL.
Secret Service Chief Tells Why Bad
>loney is Always Detected.
:
The government is an organization.
It has organized forms and
means for making currency. These
forms and means are fashioned on
the scientific plan that there are no
exact duplicates possidi? in uaiure
or in the manufacturing of a product,
says the New York Telegraph. No
two battleships are exactly similar,
any more than are two roses that
fgrow in the same garden.
As an example in the making of
' our money,, let me say that an engraver
in the government service
? can make one plate, and only one
plate, from which a given series of
bills are printed. That engravei
may nearly duplicate it exactly, but
never will be able to reproduce it
exactly, or even approach the original
work by reproduction to such a
degree that there will not be a difference
that is not detectable. So with
the dies for stamping the government
copper, silver and gold coins,
j? Then, too, it is not so remarkable
* "" * * x? ? ? ? - -?1 V?l/\ ft'ViAn
tnat duplicates are liuyussiuic, n lieu
I one considers that there are thousands,
in some instances tens of thousands,
of delicate strokes by a very
fine tool necessary in the making of
a single plate for the manufacture
of a series of notes. Perhaps a
scratch is too heavy, or maybe too
|., lightly made. Such an error would
be fatal. Consider, too, that only
one plate is used by the government
| , in printing a given series of notes;
gfe and only one die is used in making
^ a given issue of coins.
Explanation of the foregoing in
. a mechanical detail would require
E* more space than the present article
\ is intended to consume. Then, too,
it would not .clarify the situation
Eg . one whit. Still, it may be interesting
for the reader to keep in mind
&?>'. * i that no individual engraver com|>!>
pletes a plate for any series of notes.
One man engraves the vignette; an
I other does the script work; a third
man the square lettering; and yet
another takes care of the mechanical
lathe work, etc.
In the light of common reason
there is only one conclusion possible
~government money cannot be imitated
successfully for any sustained
period unless the secret service
agents cease their tireless vigilance.
And yet, in the face of all these organized
obstacles, individuals and
small groups of men have, and no
doubt will continue to do so, risked
[ ' i their freedom in an effort to^cheat
?'* Tifncle Sam by foisting spurious coins
on the public.
There is the case of the German
artist who noticed an oil painting, a
'/* representation of a ten dollar bill,
> painted in the panel on the wall of
a restaurant where he had been accustomed
to dine. He tried, at first,
"just to imitate the painting." His
imitation was in pen and ink, and
so well done that he felt a curiosity
to know whether he could deceive
JiV XI J.. .1. TTA
(any person wim uie piuuuct. nc
* tried and succeeded in the deceit.
? Then for 14 years he devoted himself
to sketching on bond paper of
^ the proper size a number of bills, in-.
) eluding ten, twenty, fifty and even
hundred-dollar notes, in imitation of
I the United States currency. It would
r/ require his continuous efforts for
: V two weeks at a time to complete a
\ hundred-dollar note. And yet again
he would take vacations for six
months at a time from his counterfeiting
labors, in the meantime devoting
himself to legitimate art.
His method of "shoving" or disposing
of the notes was to get rid of
... them in lfquor stores near the Jersey
ferries on the New York side.
He would choose a rush hour crowd
in which to approach the bar, order
* ' * j i_
- a quart of wmsKey, ana a anna,
which he would swallow at the bar
while engaging the bartended in conipy
versation. He would at the, same
time lay down his counterfeit bill^
get it exchanged hurriedly, and hasten
to New Jersey, where he had
built himself and family a house.
For the most part the bartender
P \1 did not notice the counterfeit note,
not even when counting up, and it
jgp-'.i* went to a bank or finally to the subgpip.
treasury before it was detected. All
trace of the distributer of the bill
was, of course, lost by this time.
:' However, the pitcher went to the
well once too often. One evening
about 5 o'clock our German artist
went into a liquor store -on Courtland
street, not far from the ferries.
He bought a quart of whiskey as
usual and a separate drink, and laid
a twenty-dollar bill on the bar. It
so happened that the bar was moist
with whiskey spilled from an overturned
glass. When the bartender
picked up the bill from the moistenp/.
ed bar the ink on the note, dampened
by the alcohol, soiled his fingers
and he gave the alarm.
Had the artist used what is termed
waterproof ink he would not
have been detected in that instance.
A decidedly peculiar case, peculiar
.to the general public, was that of an
Italian barber in Los Angeles. He
made notes of several denominations
on different banks. When he decidw
R i.
...
ed to leave Los Angeles he threw
most of his plant in the sea. Other
parts of it he carried to Chicago,
and buried it on an island in a part
of that city. Still more of the plant,
the plate in particular, he took to
the British Northwest and buried
them where we finally found them.
Then he came to New York and
bought a ticket for the Dutch West
Indies, where he intended to settle
down with the proceeds of his coun
terfeiting operations. He was arrested
as he boarded a steamer. He
told me he intended to remain honest
the remainder of his days.
When the barber left Los Angeles
he failed to destroy the inevitable detail,
the identification mark of his
work, which in this instance consisted
of a dog's hair. He made his bills
by printing on onion skin paper, the
front representation of a bill on one
piece and the rear representation on
another. Then, before joining the
impressions, he would place between
the papers a substitute for the little
red and blue silk threads so commonly
noticed in our notes. The substitute
consisted of hairs cut from
the back of his black dog.
Immediately a secret service agent
touched one of thes bills he felt the
straight, wiry hair of the dog instead
of the fine silk threads used by the
government in its currency. Then,
too, the dog's hairs were. cut off
clean at the ends, wiiereas tne suk
strands in the government's notes
are always unravelled at the ends
like any piece of silk thread. At this
point it may be of interest to the
public to read that each silk thread
in the government's bills consists of
more than a dozen strands of material
as it comes from the silk worm.
(Another detail that is often overlooked
by the counterfeiters.)
However, the enumeration/ of this
defect should serve only as a warning
to those who contemplate the
business of manufacturing spurious
money.
The most dangerous coin counterfeiter
with which the government
has had to deal was an Italian jeweller
in New York city. He made a
ten-dollar gold piece of 500 fineness
in the body of the article. (The government
standard is 900 fine.) Yet
the imitation was very accurate, and
in order to have the weight correct
he made the coin a whit larger than
the government measure required.
Then, too, he made a rim, commonly
called the reeding for the coin. This
rim was of the exact fineness of the
government ten-dollar gold pieces.
The jeweller's object in making
the rim, which he soldered onto the
body of the coin, was, of course, to
throw the secret service men off the
trail when they made an assay of
the rim of the counterfeit coin and
/
found the gold thereon to be of the
standard fineness.
The jeweller's coin had a rounded
rim, and not one that rose at righi
! angles from the surface of the body
of the coin, as in the genuine article.
He sent his little daughter out to
pass the coins in different shops in
the East Side of New York. When
* #
she was apprehended the news filtered
around to the jeweller in time for
him to destroy evidence which had
w.e obtained would have resulted in
his conviction. A federal jury decided
that we had failed to present
sufficient evidence upon which to con
* " ' XI
vict mm 01 maKing uie luumwicu
money, and the jeweller--was discharged.
The rounded reeding 01
rim was the most pronounced defect
in his work. The jeweller laughed
a hearty Italian laugh as he left the
court room. His kinsmen and friends
were there in goodly numbers and
joined lwm in the (laugh.
That was all . in the day's work.
Still, the future events that brought
the jeweller and me into contact
again in the same court room serves
as an answer to the often-repeated
question: Can you distinguish cer(Continued
on page 3, column 1.)
fADI
MULES AIN
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J. J. si
I II
*
NOTICE.
Notice is hereby given that a meeting
of the stockholders of the Bank
of Denmark, Denmark, S. C., is call
ed, to meet in the office of the said
bank, Friday, November 12th, 1915.
at eleven o'clock, a. m., for the purpose
of increasing the capital stock
of the said bank to $50,000.00, by
order of the board of directors.
J. ARTHUR WIGGINS, I
11-11 Cashier. I
m m- m. f"1 % X 1.1 I
MASlftn a a.iurj. |
State of South Carolina?Bamberg
! County?Common Pleas.
' Bv virtue of a decree of the said
! court in the case of Mrs. M. S. Cope
land, vs. Mrs. Annie G. Behre, et al.,
11 will sell at public sale, to the high1
est bidder, for cash, during the legal
; hours of sale on salesday in Novem|
ber next, being November 1, 1915, at
! the Court House door at Bamberg,
j S. C., the following real estate, both
tracts being situated in said county fl
land State:
All that tract of land, containing m
One Hundred and Twenty-three
acres, more or less, and bounded on
the North by lands of Mrs. J. P.
O'Quinn; on the East by lands of
Mrs. Laura Bessinger; on the South
by lands of T. J. Crider; and on the
West by margin of Lemon Swamp.
ALSO
All that tract of land, containing
one hundred and fifty acres, more or
less, and bounded on the North by
lands of Martin Hunter; on the East
by lands of Mary B. Stokes; on the
South by lands of Jacob I. Rentz;
and on the West by margin of Lemon
' Swamp. H. C. FOLK,
Master.
Dated Oct. 11, 1915.
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