Daily independent. [volume] (Elko, Nev.) 188?-1915, 1891-03-04
FRAUDULENT COINS.

adclphla Inquirer. Bankers and others
are frequently. coming acr6ss light
pieces. The discovery a few days ago
of nearly $500 in light $3.50 gold pieces
rendered in payment of custom duties
by prominent importer has led to the
detection of numerous pieces short in
weight showing that there Is In opera
ton q systematic Scheme Tor robbing
the Government by means of stealing
metal from coins. OHicers of the
United States secret service are now
ut work IN this city endeavoring to
trace the coins through different hands
and find the offenders. iait-f.- 40. 5.
The process of robbery, which Is IA
military known as sweating" coins,
was formerly practiced to a large OK
tent, but of late years few instances OF
It have come to the attention of the au-
thoritics. 1t is not highly profitable,
and at best, under the old methods of
extracting the metal, it did not afford
much more than living.
From a careful examination of the
light pieces which are now being found,
it is evident that the thief is not doing
his work by the old hand method of
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 cleo
tricity. Tho service of an ordinary
gnlvanic battery and some cheap acid is
all that is necessary to conduct the OPP
Grafton by the electric process. The
scheme is similar to that employed in
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
form Of plating, the metal to
be removed from the coin.
The battery being set in motion,
sufficient gold to form a plating is quick
ly transferred, and as it is removed
uniformly from all parts of the coin the
liability of Disagreement is reduced to
q minimum. The only effect is to blur
the characters slightly I..;: ~ ,
An authority at the mint has esti-
mated that about SO cents worth of
gold can be removed in this way from u
$40 gold piece without exciting the sus-
picion of the casual observer To the
skilled eye of an, expert, however, the
effect is generally apparent Mt glance.
and it 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, Tandy by
name, who, by years of experience in
the handling of coin, has become so ex-
pert in his judgment that he can tell by
mere touch with closed eyes whether a
piece is of spurious metal or, whether it
is n genuine coin that has been tam
pered with. In this respect he is not
approached by any other person in the
world. 49, .....,ff,.,...
The electric process of stealing from
coins is not altogether new scheme.
The Government officials n few years
ago capture d in Northern New York a
band of italians who were operating
extensively on this plan. Few but for
eigncrs practice Sweating" in this
country. 1t is an institution of theft
rancii more common in Europe than on
this side of the Atlantic, and those who
operate here are usually persons who
have been driven from their country for
the same reason. The enterprise does
not yield sufficient inducement in the
way Of easy labor and large returns
| to tempt the average native born
swindlcrs, and it is mostly monopolized
by class content to live on little and
| hoard small savings.
| Some idea of the readiness with
| which gold can be removed from coins
| is found in. the result of series of in
vestigations made some years ago in the
mint. It was shown chat SIS was lost by
abrasion every time 100000 in gold
coin was handled. The experiments
were conducted with bags containing
$1,000 each, and IL was shown that the
mere lifting of the 200 bags making up
81, 100000 to q truck to be removed to
another vault resulted in the loss stated,
and that their transfer from the truck
again made a second similar loss,
by. an order issued some time ago by
the Treasury Department at Washing.
ton the light $3.50 coins found the
other day were stamped with e.