The Portland daily press., 1891-03-09
ThEETs FROM GOLD COIN.
How Uncle Sam Has Eeen ROBBED
by Ingenious italians and Poles.
New York Herald

New York Herald.J
s. The United States sub-treasnry offi-
cials.ofs this city are greatly annoyedSat
nrasent by the amount of lightweight
eobd,coin5that is coming into their cof
fers The gold is all short in value, and
though thereis no apparent dhfferencein
the size of the various pieces or their
weight to the unprac2ced observer,
many of them have been reducedtone-
third of their value.
The officials do not hesitate to accuse
persons of robhing the government by
| reducing the weight of the. coin, and the
government has even gone so far as to
take steps to stop the robbery. Assistant
Treasurer Roberts saids thatmany ofthe
$5gold pieces werefifty centsshort. and
me>of the $101pieces were worth onlv
1925. The 81 coins did.not.suffer much
because it would hardly pay to bother
with them.
In every case that hissattentio,, had
Deem called to the face of the.cuin had
not peen worn OF. muti2xted. The fianres
ana designs presented lines assharpas
new ones, and the milling hadn't been
disturbed. These coins were. however.
all short from twenty-five to fifty cents
In value. These facts have caused 1.-The
officials to think thatzthere are persons
at work in the city who are making
regular business of defraudingt hegov-
eminent.
The gold in these cases has been re-
moved from the coin by means ola
chemicaIprocess, which, does not appear
to affect the generaiappearance of the
money.
An old treasury official, in4speakingof
the fraud, gave me some interesting
facts concerning this species of robbery.
'"p~'-e are half a dozen waysof getting
gold off COINS" said he, but the two
most in vogue are those where acid Is
used, and in the sweating process. The
latter is most in vogue among Polish
Jews and Italians, who make regular
business of it.
SIN the first place they secure stout
canvas bag and fill it-about half full of
gold coins. The top of the bag is tied,
and then the coins are shaken together
for hours at time. The friction of one
coin rubbing. againststhe other wears off
considerable gold, and it is deposited at
the bottom of the bag. Each time $500
worth of gold coin is treated to the
sweating process~th italian viii prob
ably secure $50 worth of dust. The
coins when taken out looksomewhat old
as if they had been in circulation a
long 'time-but they will always be ac-
cepted by persons not used to handling
| money.
'sToa person, familiar with the frauds,
however, it is always easy to detect
coin that has. been treated to a sweat
The Italian will always take new coin
orthe' purpose, and if aperson will only
stop to think he can also detect light
coin. The gold does not wear off as
rapidly as is generally supposed in ordi-
nary circulation. Therefore when per-
SON finds coin which from its date is
only two or three years old, that has a
very worn appearance, ithas undoubted-
ly been treated to sweat These
coins viii always be found short weight,
and people will save money if they
watch the date and condition of the
pieces'they receive.
"The process of removing gold by an
acid bath is now resorted to more gen.
orally than the old sweating system, as
it is harder to detect the shortage in the
coins. On 'sweated' coin the figures and
milling are worn, while on the others
the designs are not at all injured. To
detect shortage in. the latter coin weigh
them