The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1894-08-10
BOGUS COIN IN THE POT.
Work Of COunteTleitGTS Destroyed at
the Navy Yard.

Accommodations of Eighteen Months
by Secret Service Of1cials-Thirteen
Bags and Seventeen Boxes of Imita-
ton Coin and Devices That Might
Be Mistaken for Coin by Ignorant
Persons-Brass Saloon Checks and
Copper Dollars Silver Plated.
From the Washington Post.
r. Seventeen boxes and thirteen big money
bags Of the coin productions of counter
feiters, gathered by the secret service
officials during the last eighteen months,
were destroyed yesterday in the furnaces
at the navy yard. A heavy wagon load of
over two tons, including $50 900 in spuri-
Gus coins of every denomination from a
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 q ten-ton cupola blast
ing furnace and seven or eight smelling
pots in the establishment adjoining the
gun shop were pressed into service for re-
ducing the deceptive metals to ingots.
The great treasure. which would have
paid the salary of the head of the treas
ury department two or three times over
if it had been the true coin of the realm,
watched as if by sleuth hounds, from the
time it left the keeping of the secret
| service till it was transformed into a
molten mass, by a committee of three
tried treasury employees, consisting of
Lee w Funk, j. j. Willard, and DR..
| George B. Young, who anuihalated $50,
| 600 worth of bad paper money in
araFc Frsa
and burned a lot of paraphernalia i'm
! portant to that branch of the counter
| feiting business. &. H. Gallon of the
! secret service, who has succeeded in fer
reting out good quantity of bad cash,
was also in the party to see that the
| wagon load was properly disposed of. An
! inventory had previously been taken of
! the articles, which will be kept in the
! archives of the department with the GER
| titicate of destruction.
! MELTING THE METAL IN CRUCIBLEs.
Master Molder George r. Cook divided
! the booty into two parts, of which the
! thirteen money bags were taken away to
| the crucibles at the farther end of the
! building. Each of these held about
| half-bushel, about the right size to hold
! good fat chicken, as one of the committee
| told a cOlored laborer, and was chock full
| of Clinking coins. They were in fact, the
bags which the mint uses for the trans
! portation of genuine gold and silver, and
| were about all that one man could lift.
! One of them was sufficient to fill graph
! tie crucible nearly full and the committee
had to wait IN the temperature which
was hot enough for crematory for the
metal TO melt because there were not cru
! cibles enough to contain the contents of
| all the bags
The collection that ratified into the FIRE
! proof receptacles was as varied as the
rats that followed The pied piper ont of
| Hamelin town. One of the first pieces
which one of the curious fished out of an
| open bag was a circular brass check with
round hole in it and beariug an inscrip-
ton to the effect that it was good for the
price of q drink at the opera house
| sample room Some of the committee
| looked thirsty just then, but the best
liquid at hand was big tank of Uncle
SAINTS ice water, and with cOpious
draughts of this the counterfeit destroy
ers continued their work The checks of
which there were q large number, were
| contiscated down IN Alabama, where
| there seems to be craze for counterfeit
| devices of a similar character, and each
| stated on its face good for 1875 cents to
the possessor." 1t had a monogram of
the enterprising 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 peo-
| pie, especially the negroes, into believing
it to be money.
5-CENT PIECES GOLD PLATED.
One ingenious imposition upon the pub
! lie, which went into the white hot melt
| ing pot, was about 200 stick pins, ex-
cellent limitations at first sight of So gold
| pieces. They were manufactured from
scent pieces which were gilded, having
| the pin soldered upon the side bearing the
letter V, and were worth in genuine
money, if the gliding could have been re-
| moved, $50 in hard money. 1t is the prin-
ciple at the treasury that everything con-
nected with the infamous OCCUPATION
must be destroyed, and tire good 5-cent
pieces were consigned to, the crucible
without conjunction.
There were also a number of solder sill
yer dollars which had evidently been cap
tured by giving the maker a surprise, for
the mouths OF the mold were still attached
to the coins They were bungling pieces
of work in the art of coin fashioning and
the fact that they were nodded was suf-
ticient to make them light. At the minis
the silver coins are made from dies, and
1t is not pc 3sible to get the requisite num-
Der of grains into the standard size by
any other method than that of compress
sion Mr.. Funk took one of the dollars
and "faked' it, as the profession would
say, and it was marvellous to notice the
transformation it caused This consists
of rubbing bit Of backing off your boot.
which you rub upon the coin taking off
the brigh tness and making it look like old
silver. IL is trick as old as coin counter
feiting in this county, and is almost uni
versally employed.
COPPER DOLLARS SILVER PLATED.
There was mum Der of foreign pieces
also in the collection. one of which was of
Spain, and bore likeness of the head of
Princess Eulalie. The best workmanship
in the collection was in number OF silver
dollars which were made out in the
Windy city, and put the officers to task
more in the detection than any other
couuterfeiting scheme for years These
are made on a base of copper, carefully
stamped and electroplated with the white
metal each dollar having % cents worth
of the good stuff. The ring of these dol
lars was all right, as was their weight
and appearance, and there was no way in
which they could be detected except by
cutting into them. IL is hard telling how
long the fraud was undetected or hew
many of the bogus dollars there are cir
culatihg at present around the marts OF
trade. The ingenious scheme was first
detected in the sub-treasury at Cincin
natl and the perpetrator is now serving
five years time.
There were many other kinds of bogus