The Wichita daily eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1890-1906, 1891-06-02

EXPENSIVE PATTERNS.
THAT MANUFACTURE
ING CONCERNS HOARD.

or E1ece OF Ornamental 1ronWork Costs
Many Times More Than Subsequent D1-
pIicates-Government Plates.
Fortunes are invested in models and
patterns used in various branches of
manufactures. The pattern room of any
Of the large iron molders or machine
shops that have been long in operation
presents an array Of woodwork that has
cost good deal of money. Take, for in
stance, the iron front of a building. The
various columns, panels, cornices, sllls
and ornaments have all been made IN
wood, which is used to mold the sand in
which the iron is cast.
Generally the cost OF the patterns is
paid for on the first order. Subsequent
orders for castings of the same patterns
are executed more cheaply because the
patterns are ready made. Sometimes the
foundry owns the patterns and supplies
duplicates to all customers, but in many
cases owners Of buildings prefer to own
their own patterns, so that no other
building may look like theirs.
The preservation and duplication Of
patterns Is a feature and source of great
profit in many manufacturing opera
tons. It is q characteristic Of all kinds
of printing. The type founder procures
matrices of various fonts of type at great
st, but having once secured his mold
he can go on producing any number OF
duplicates at trihing cost. The first cost
of the mold is the main cost, compared
with which the cost of metal and casting
is trifing. The same is true of al pro-
cesses of printing pictures.
The wood engraving, the photographic
stone, the steel plate, all cost much at
the outset, but, being once produced,
they may be duplicated by various pro-
cesses at comparatively trifing cost.
Thus picture may be sold for a profit
at penny, although to produce the first
one may have cost thousands of dollars.
GOVERNMENTAL PATTERNS.
The application of duplicating process
ses to the building trade has worked an
industrial revolution. I'll true that one
result is to produce buildings much
alike. The designs for doors, windows,
stairways, stoops, vestibules, towers,
locks, bolts, 1nantels, sideboards, pier
glasses, cornices, and, in fact, all parts
of a building are used over and over
again, and the cost of building is there
fore much cheapened. The fact is that
many parts of buildings may be pur-
chased ready made and in any desired
quantities, and buildings constructed of
such material are put up very cheaply.
But when new designs are needed, odd
shapes, fancy styles, novel ornamental
ton, the cost is greatly increased.
Before the war all the paper money in
the United States was printed by private
companies, who owned all the plates and
patterns. Even the United States gov
eminent did not own the plates from
which its notes were printed, and in one
famous case the counterfeiter, by subter-
fuge, procured from these private parties,
for a nominally honest purpose, the use
of the devices used in printing a United
States treasury note; and the devices
thus fraudulently obtained were actual
" used to produce a spurious treasury
note, which was in many respects an eK-
act duplicate of the original. That risk
led to the adoption of new plan by
which, when the government got any
notes printed, the contractors were COM
PEELED to surrender all the designs, pat
terms, dies and plates used to produce
the issue, so that they could not by any
possibility be used for any but legiti-
mate purposes.
Ultimately that led to the establish
ment of the bureau of engraving and
printing, and the government now con-
trolls all the patterns Of its paper money
in the same way that it controls the dies
Of its metal coinage. The expense Of
steel engraving is so great that it Is only
by duplicating and using the same de-
sign again and again that it is made
profitable to use such beautiful designs
as are used in commercial work, as notes,
bonds, bills of exchange, etc.