The St. Johns herald., 1891-06-25
FRAUDULENT COINS.
The Use or Electricity in Doctor
 ing" Gold Pieces.
GaIvan'c Batteries Employed In the Proc ess Of Removing Gold from Coins The Immense Loss Through
 Abrasion.


 adelphia Inquirer Bankers and others are frequently coming across light pieces. The discovery few days ago
 of nearly $500 in light S2.50 gold pieces tandered in payment of custom duties
 by a prominent importer has led to the detection of numerous pieces short in weight, showing that there is in opera t;on q systematic scheme for ro5hing tllc Government by means of stealing metal from coins. Officers of the United States secret service arc noyy at work in this city endeavOring l. trace the coins through different hands and find the offenders.
 The process of robbery, which is ia miliarly known as sweating" coirS,
 was formerly practiced to large eH-
 tent, but Of late years few instances ci it have come to the attention Of the au-
 tloritics. It is not highly profitable,
 and at best, under the old methods of extracting the metal, 1t cid not afford
 much more than Q living.
 From a careful examination of the light pieces which are now being found,
 1t is evident that the thief is not doing his work by the old hand method e shaking the coins in a bag and then gathering the dust by means of quick silver, but that he has brought into requisition the rapid agency of elec- tricity. The service of an ordinary galvanic battery and some cheap acid j. all that Is necessary to conduct the cr- cration by the electric process. The scheme is similar to that employed ia plating with gold by electricity. The coin is placed in the fluid, and attached to it are wires from the poles to the battery leading to another piece of metal prepared to receive, in the form of plating, the metal to be removed from the coin. The battery being set in motion, sufficient gold to foEm plating is quick T. transferred and as it is removed uniformly from all parts Of the coin the liability of disfigurement j. reduced to 9 minimum. The only effect is to blur the characters slightly.
 An authority at the mint has esti- mated that about 50 cents worth Of gold can be removed in this way from $10 gold piece without exciting tho sus- picion of the casual observer. To the skilled eye of an expert, however. the effect is generally apparent at 6 glance, and 1t does not always require the scales to determine whether the coin is correct or not. In the New York sub- treasury there is one man, TanGy by name, who, by years of experience iu the handling of coin, has become so cX- Pert in his judgment that he can tell hy mere touch with closed eyes whether a piece is of spurious metal CT whether t is Q genuine coin that has been tam pered with. In this respect he i> nod approached by any other person iu the world
 The electric process of stealing from coins is not altogether a new scheme. The Government officials a few years ago capture in Northern New York 2 band of Italians who were operating extensively on this plan. Few but for eigncrs practice ''swcatjng' in t5is country. It is ar institution cf theft much more common iu Europe than o. this side Of the Atlantic, and those who operate here are usually persons who have been driven from their country fer the same reason. The enterprise does not yield sufficient inducemept in the way of easy labor and large returns to tempt the average native borr swindlers, and t is mostly plonopolized by a class content to live on little and hoard small savings.
 Some idea of the readiness witt, which gold can be removed from coin: 1 is found in the result of a series of in vestigations made some years ago in tho 1 mint. 1t was shown that 8 was lost Gr abrasion every time S1,0O0, O00 in gold coin was handled The experiments were conducted with bags containing |, S5,G00 each, and it was shown that thc | mere lifting of the 900 bags making IF | Sl ,000, eco to q truck to be removed L. | another vault resulted in tllc loss stated. ! and that their transfer from the truck i again made a second similar loss.
 Gold while in circulation is han | died less than any other medium. It is usually kept in the vaults of banks | for demand rarely made, and fer jhi, reason the loss by abrasion is but enc i half of 1 per cent. in twenty years. !E ! a so gold piece, the standard weight O. which is 5i3 grains, the Government | allowance for loss by abrasion is 2.5s grains. but except in cases where the i coins have been tempered with F. i sweaters" the loss rarely exceeds tli l limit.
 By an order issued some time ego lv i the Treasury Department d Washing ton the light $2.5o coins toQrJ th other day were stamped with "L. indicating that they were light : shortly after tho late Daniel A Fox was appointed surcTiHtcr,c,, If the mint in this city the Socrotary c .he Treasury issued similar orlcr. A stamp was procured, but pIotes. Geia made Superintendent EoH'5 attention was called to the matter and he d2ciGcl tAat l:c had no authority in justice to the property of another, So t.,c stamp was pl,t aw&y and never used a- the mint. Light coins finding tSeir yvay into the custo,a-hclsse will not, hOwVv a,-Nr -Ny,Niy-,a s,-h N,,r-t.>,,s- faCvse;.3 .-g-