The united opinion. [volume] (Bradford, Vt.) 1881-1970, 1886-07-23
TRICKS IN BANK NOTES.
TALES TOLD ~ An OLD MAN IN
THE TREASURY.

SVS sVSVOOVvs
Apparently No Linit 70 the cIsvs,
Tricks Of ntsrfsitsss-Cspitai Piece
Of werkmanship . The Experienced
Eye Of the Clssk.
There II white-haired, sharp-eyed little
man In tho treasury, who has been ono of the
features Of the place for Year,. While moi
readily accessible to ordinary visitors, he can,
on presentation Of letter Of introduction,
render himself an extremely interesting per.
sonage, inasmuch as he Is q perfect store.
house Of anecdotes, which he relates with all
the charm Of an accomplished racontcur.
Into this gentleman's hands, speaking meta
phorically, happened to fall, and it re.
quired no particular effort to make tho off,
cial talkative He was inspecting al the
moment a spurious 800 note, and this cir.
cumstance gave rise to his first anecdote.
~ tell you," he said, "there is apparently no
limit to the clever tricks of counterfeiters.
Just look at this note. It doubtless deceived
over hundred people before it came into
our hands. know for fact that 1t was ac-
cepted as genuine by a bank teller in high
standing, and yet the instant certain young
woman in one Of our departments let her ex-
perienced eye fall upon it, she detected its
worthless character. The neat workmanship
on this bill reminds me Of a case which came
to our notice some time ago. A counterfeiter
had got up number Of 500 notes on six
separate banks The copy used was on a
bank which made its 800 notes in this style.
On one end Of the paper was an engraving
of ship, the yard-arm of which ran between
two delicate fourishes underneath the word
"the," which was the first word of the name
of the bank of issue; as for instance, The
National Bank of the Republic, or the First
National bank. The fraud would have been
a particularly neat one had the counterfeiter
made his notes payable by the same bank
from which he obtained his original specimen.
Instead of being sufficiently shrewd, however,
to avail himself of that precaution, or per-
haps through an excess of caution, he made
them payable by six other banks. Each Of
these latter institutions had one distinctive
feature on the face of their 500 notes. The
yard arm of the vessel, instead of running be-
tween the two minute fourishes barely
touched the outside Of the flourish nearer the
top of the note, and approached closer to the
word the by the sixteenth Of an inch. OF
course the counterfeit, which was capital
piece of workmanship with the one exception
mentioned, deceived merchants easily, and
deceived many tellers as well. The moment
the notes passed through the hands of lynx
eyed young lady at the treasury she dis
covered their spurious quality in twink
ling"
YOUNG woMEN's EYES.
ut must be difficult, them" I remarked,
ito hoodwink your clever female clerksl
How do they educate their eyes!'
"By constantly running over money. To
casually watch these women at work you
would probably imagine that their sole aim
was simply to count the money as rapidly as
possible. Not So A clerk will take pile Of
bills, tightly fastened together by rubber
bands, and without 80 much as loosening tho
fastenings she will begin to count at
lightning rate by merely turning over quickly
the upper right hand corner of each note.
Still, though she had only such small por-
ton Of the note for her guide, she will dis
cover counterfeit readily. Let me relate
little incident which happened whila. tho
Seventh regiment was in the city. Some Of
the boys, among them paying teller from .
New York bank, paid US call, looking very
elegant in their tasteful uniforms They
were engaged for several moments in watch
ing the clerks count money in the manner
described.
Suddenly one of the young women
snapped note from the package which she
was running over. After she had thrown it
aside in an apparently careless manner,
picked it up and handed 1t to the visitors for
inspection. 1t was passed from one to another
without eliciting any special comment Final
~ it reached IT, man whom knew to be
paying teller He examined 1t for moment,
and returned it to my possession without
word I asked him If he had noticed any
thing peculiar in regard to it. He replied in
the negative. And yet It was an ingenious
as the experienced eye Of the
clerk had detected tho instant she had turned
up q corner of it,
SPLITTING NOTE IN TWO.
"Is it possible" asked, "for q note to be
80 split in two a. to show both sides Of it in
tact."
"Oh, yes; and it is very easily DONE You
procure certain kind Of gum, and paste tho
note face downward to piece OF paper.
Then you paste another piece Of paper over
the back of tho note. By carefully pulling
the two pieces apart the fiber Of tho note will
Split and what looks hike a difficult transac-
ZION Is easily accomplished. NObnIng, now |
ever can be gained by the operation. If ono
half of such bill were forwarded to US for
redemption, We would return to the sender
one half Of its face value. Sharpers indulge
occasionally in little game which consists Of |
piecing notes. That is, they will make nine
notes out of eight, each note being pieced |
once. When you come to measure them you |
will find that they are precisely one.eighth |
shorter than they should be. Merchants are |
readily dupcd by them, but rarely bank
cashier"
"What is the rule relative to the redemption |
of mutilated currencyp
ave redeem nothing smaller than one-half
of note, and we pay in proportion to the |
quantity of the note SENT except where there
is only one-tenth missing. In the latter case |
we pay the full face value. If you were to |
send us Q one dollar note, one-quarter of |
which had been torn away, we would give
you seventy fve cents for it. If within six
months not later, you succeed in recover
ing the missing part, we would, on its presen-
tation, pay you twenty-five cents more Sup
pose you brought US shred Of a note, with |
the edges singed, and asserted that it was the
of 500 bill which had accidentally
been destroyed by fire. We would request |
you to make an affidavit in support of your
story If you could still further substantiate