Washington standard. [volume] (Olympia, Wash. Territory) 1860-1921, 1895-05-24
UNCLE SANS GREENBACKS.
How They Are Made, and What
PrccauSiOns Are Taken 10 Pre-.
vent COunterfeiting Them.

vent COunterfeiting Them.
Special Correspondence of the STANDARD,
No honest man disputes the right of
the government TO maintain its mo-
nOpoly of the business of manufactur-
ing paper money. In order to outwit
the counterfeiters the greatest care is
necessary. In the first place the Pc
culiar paper employed, which is made
of silk fiber and has threads of colored
silk embedded in its surfaces, can only
be made under strictest supervision of
the agents of the Treasury Depart
ment. If private individual should
be found in possession of even small
piece of imprinted paper he would be
liable to twenty years Imprisonment
at hard labor in addition to the pay
ment of fine OF $1,000. The sheets
are counted scores of times from the
time that they leave the paper mill at
Springfield, Mass. until they are ready
for circulation, and each person
through whose hands they pass gives
a receipt for the quantity received,
and is held strictly responsible for the
safety of his charge.
In the matter of engraving, every
possible precautiOn is taken to prevent
fraud, and the resources OF the art are
resorted to to produce designs which
cannot be copied. Occasionally work.
men have been detected in the at
tempt to make duplicate plates, one for
the government and the other for pri
vate use, but such practice has been
always most emphatically frowned
upon when discovered. The work
upon each bill is subdivided among so
many employees at present that it is
not thought possible for any workman
to obtain an entire plate. When the
designs for the fronts and backs OF the
bills are decided upon, the work for
the different sections is divided among
the various engravers; for Instance
one man will be given the portrait, an
other the border line, another the let
tering, and still another the scroll
work. Each man, excepting the one
that does the scroll work, patiently re-
produces upon a plate of soft steel
the part Of the design given him. The
work is wholly hard labor, each dot
and line being carefully cut with sharp
pointed chisels, or "gravers.'
The scroll work is done with ma
chine called "lsthe." This ma
chine works upon the principle of the
"pantagraph," which is used in copy
ing pictures. The design for the
scroll is made upon large scale and
this is followed by the end OF the long
arm OF the lever. The short end OF
the lever carries a cutting tool which
reproduces the line in a proper scale
upon the ordinary soft steel plate.
When all OF the parts of the design
are completed and turned in, they are
tempered and hardened and are then
passed beneath roller OF soft steel,
under great pressure. The designs are
thus transferred to the roller, one at
time, and joined together in the prop
er order, so that when completed the
roller will have the complete design
for one side of the bill, but every cut
in the line OF the original design ap-
pears as Il projection. and rice rersa.
In other words the roller represents
an "intaglio" impression of the de.
sign. This roller is in turn tempered
and the hardest part OF the work is
accomplished.
From this roller as many printing
plates as may be desired can be made.
The steel plates are first softened then
passed beneath the "intaglio" roller,
and then tempered. When the plate
has been worn smooth it can again be
softened and passed under the roller.
Each plate prints four bills, and fire..
quently as many as eighty or hun
dred plates of each denomination will
be in use at the same time. Rollers
of this character have been known TO
reproduce the designs upon as many
as ten thousand plates before wearing
out. The backs OF the bills are print
, ed in one operation in green ink, then
after being dried, the faces are printed
, in black. Before leaving the Bureau
, of Engraving and Printing the bills
are numbered in blue in the upper
. right hand and the lower left hand
, corners. After reaching the Treasury
, building proper they receive the final
, impression which Is the red seal OF the
q Treasury of the United States, and
, are cut apart. Not until the seal is