The Princeton union. [volume] (Princeton, Minn.) 1876-1976, 1894-10-25
ESTRO II BA D. M NEY.
CONSIGNED TO THE
Oh MELTING POT.

5;ome OF the Devices Designed to Fool j:
i the Good People Lead rs the Pre-
vailing Material, But Some More VAL
liable Metals Are Found.
@ Seventeen boxes and thirteen big
money bags of the coin prod Of
counterfeiters, gathered BY the secret
service officers during the last eighteen
months, were destroyed recently in
the furnaces at the navy yard. A
heavy wagon load Of over two tons, (.
including $40, 900 in spurious coins Of
every denomination from copper
cent to a bogus twenty-dollar gold
piece, together with dies, devices, and
Jim cracks Of various descriptions,
were hauled away from the treasury
early in the morning, and with the
permission of Secretary Herbert ten /.
ton cupola blasting furnace and seven
or eight smelling pots in the estab-
lishment adjoining the gunshops were
pressed into service for reducing the
deceptive metals to ingots.
The great treasure, which would
have paid the salary of the head Of the
treasury department. two or three times
over it it had been the true coin of the /
realm, was watched as If by sleuth
hounds from the time it left the keep
ing of the secret service till it was
transformed into a molten mass bv a
committee of three tried treasury en-
ployes, who annihilated $50, 900 worth
OF bad paper money in Uncle Sans
macerator and burned a lot of para
phernalia important to that branch Of
the counterfeiting business. An in
ventory had previously been taken of
the articles, which will be kept in the
archives of the department with the
certificate Of destruction.
Master Moulder George B. Cook
divided the booty into two parts, Of
which the thirteen money bags were
taken away to the crucibles at the fur
ther end of the building. i. &
The collection that ratified into the
fireproof receptacles was as varied as
the rats that followed the pied piper
out Of Hamelin town. One of the
first pieces which one of the curious
fished out of an open bag was a circu-
lar brass check with round hole in
it and bearing an inscription to the eff
feet that it was good for the price Of a
drink at the Opera House sample room.
The checks, of which there were a,
large number, were confscated down
in Alabama, where there seems to be
a craze for counterfeit devices of a
similar character, and each stated on
its face, 'tgood for 123 cents to the
possessor. y
1t had monogram of the enterpris-
ing proprietor of the sample room on
one side and did not appear much like
any coin OF the realm, but. it was for
hidden by the authorities because,
among other reasons, it might deceive
some people, especially the negroes,
into believing it to be money.
One ingenious imposition upon the
| public which went into the white hot
melting pot was about l 700 stick pins.
excellent limitations at first sight of
| So gold pieces. They were manufac-
tured from fve-cent pieces which were
gilded, having the pins soldered upon
the side bearing the letter Y, and were
worth in genuine money, if the gliding
could have been removed, $50, in hard
money. It is the principle at the
treasury that everything connected
with the Infamous occupation must be
destroyed, and the good fve-cent
pieces were consigned to the crucible
without conjunction.
There was also a number Of solder
silver dollars which had evidently been
captured by giving the maker sur
prise, for the mouths of the mold were
still attached to the coins. They were
bunggling pieces of work in the art OF
coin fashioning, and the fact that they
were moulded was sufficient to make
them light At the minis the silver
coins are made from dies, and it is not
possible to get the requisite number Of
grains into the standard size bv any
other method than that of compression.
There were a number Of foreign
pieces also in the collection, one 81
which was of Spain, and bore a. like
ness of the head of Princess Eulalie.
The best workmanship in the collec-
ton was in the number of silver dol
lars, which were made in the windy
| city, and put the officers to task more
in the detection than any other coun-
| terfeit scheme for years. These are
made on a base of copper, carefully
stamped and electroplated with the
| white metal, each dollar having "a
| cents worth Of the good stuff. The
| ring Of these dollars was all right, as
was their weight and appearance, and
| there was no way in which they could
be detected save BY cutting into them
| It is hard telling how long the fraud
was undetected or how many Of The
bogus dollars there are circulating al
present around the marts Of trade
The ingenious scheme was first de
tected in the sub-treasury in Cincin
natl, and the perpetrator is now serv
| ing five years time.
i hot