The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1833-1916, 1896-04-04
pEN-MADE COUNTERFEITS.
THEY,RB WONDERS, AND 4 SAMPLE
~CONVINCEs MN. PZCKARD.

secret Service Aeent Bage Says Mage,
Turued Out One OF Them Every Tive
weeks-ChieHy 9e0s-Ragg Has seven q,
Thrm-Geo. A. Castor A. Co. Have one.
The letter from s. 8. Packard, which vas
rrIn,ed In THE SUr yesterday. insisting on the
impossibility OF counterfeiting a United States
note with pen and ink we'll enough to deceive
A newsboy." stirred up q hornets nest. The
man who made counterfeits with his pom and
who could never be caught has been an idol In
the public mind for years and years. No story
Of counterfeiters has been complete without
him. He has been pictured As a wealthy person
who engaged In the making of counterfeits just
for the fun he got out Of fooling people. He
has been pictured as a great artist, who made
the notes merely to pass the time away.
He has been told about by school teach-
ers to pupils to impress on the pupils
the possibility of perfection. AS to tho quality
,his work IL has been said that his bills were
better even than those the Government issues;
tha, In some cases IL was this superior excel
leuce that caused their detection. There have
been stories without number OF how these
notes Of his have passed through banks and
even through the United States Treasury with
out being detected. and Of how genuine notes
OF the same number as his have been declared
counterfeit by the Government officials and de-
s,royed. while his have been returned TO circu-
luton.
II was this popular belief that Mr.. Packard
assaulted. and several thousand persons. more
or less. sprang to the defence OF THE Sun,
which had printed the story of the arrest of
Farmer manuel Ringer and the excellence Of
his supposed work as a pen-and-ink counter
fei,pr that called forth the letter from Mr..
Packard. Mr.. Packard said in the letter:
lho'd In my hand a legal tender United states note
@. nrs for q en- copy OF IL that would deceive q news
a aSS,- A and il no o iGs rT xSg witt i Admit i1 +" t + sS1l i,n e
. pen sT,ts. ~ ~ the hS,S %G IsSo ina" nS s1T fou DO bn 81 In ie ssv Than pa,
ten. The border alone. on the diverse SIDE. Il II could
q s' S aSnG al a T. E Them. '1 lake " 1Se po snq ie'e Of 7 f psniGy
% " SiEn. II the S,on Iowf 3, le enihi"Su, ep ss3cr. q IND
leila II the lower r rSa t hand corner; Note Sss
me a muscle steady enough. and Ink sdnfsciensly
,imr a AND OF r the p ,oN. me ssx sInsp e j,s denote snd 5h n at ynsl
Il%"fs;,nation MSrS i Sp 70 The foTssrSSn$ Win 3
oGnrH the BIZ over and make Your head ache BY con.
, S%rn. at So N asi iss sn ns t, S 8. sii,RR sst' invl l.ns: G to the he n Is.ss
n ,of SeT IT is 1 4sr ~ sts can alma make K a @ fses' ~ xns sI ri. t wso
could do the y o r. 9 e. u cd, to this ~, German fS.%sr
labor.
got letters from the cashiers Of several banks
and from otler persons accustomed TO handling
was undoubtedly correct; that nobody could
draw IL bill to fool them. which. by the way,
was nrCDaDiy correct, TOT hDlllty 10 OeteCL COun-
terfeit money amounting almost to intuition is
not only u natural gift to some persons, but Is
attained by most persons who handle many
The first result of Mr.. Packard's letter on the
popular side Of the question was the receipt of
the following letter by THE sun:
To the EDITOR OF TUE srS-Sir: II Mr.. s.. s. Packard.
your agnos'lc correspondent on pen; and. ink counter.
mem Hei OF npre.unabiyj Fn,anuei Sins+r's handiwn"rk.
ne can .ra,iiy his curiosity os,nson and d. perhaps ,h BE- com Z
calling on the undersigned.
srs"nbstk wrish the h tr asury oa,eIals declared so%s
Eight years ago 70 be the ia... sp ,c,men Of pen'and'
a f9ll dsseriiption Of the n, Wn.,i in question is on
GEO. <. CASTOR & Co, Fifth Avenue Hotel
This letter was brought to The Sun office by
Mr.. Charles 5. \ Morley, Of the firm OF George A.
twenty-dollar bills and asked that the counter
felt be picked Dat. Then before any decision
was reached he said. pointing to one of the bills:
That's the pen-and-lnk one. but don't be-
licve there's a man here would refuse to accept
i, qa1s'' he was looking especially for counter;
Looked at from a distance of a foot or so the
bills appeared to be identical. The counterfeit
looked as good n hill as the genuine. and If the
genuine hadn't been there to compare it with
there isn't much doubt That nine out Of ten Of
genuine United states $50 note. IL was a legal
tender note of the issue of 1850. and bore the
vlgnette OF Hamilton on the left and Liberty on
with Tie, signature of j. *. Bruce as Register
and A. W. Wyman as Treasurer. The work on
the other side was like the genuine, and there
was the IMPRINT columbian Bank Note Com
pany.' wi!ch a tthat time made some OF the
TIN n"tt," sand Mr., Morley, was taken by
H' wss ,1r Ge; H IN ,p tie G'sn second eniS S Sad o q Ief Rane
The next day Mr.. Castor received q letter from
the hank saying that a counterfeit had been re-
ceiN ed from the firm, and ! went to the bank
and replaced i, with a genuine note. The bank
Lad notified the Treasury Department. and an
fused to giveit ur. Then Mr.. Brooks. the chief
az the secret sery.ce called on me aud asked to
uIsst''f IT, he '" examiped It phronrh" u a
mnsnifying glass. and declared II was
that the department had been after for ten
years. His final test. to show that was wetting
his thumb and pressing one of the signatures.
There was a blur. The note was afterward ex-
emined by several Treasury Department OH
men of the WORK of a penman that they had
seen. | was permitted to keep 1t. and have had
il locked mp in my. safe since. Mr.. Packard's
letter in The Sun this morning made me bring
The note was carefully examined in THE SUN
office by fifteen or twenty persons. That II was
q remarkable piece of penmahship there was
no question. The colois and tie shading on the
cGlors ana shading on the genuine note with
which it was compared; The vignette Of Ham
steel engraving on the genuine. The lines were
81 tne 1t seemed impossible that they could have
sssn mads WAN and I l Rsn aS Sy q in nI the bo heea, of The Inc
note were almost perfect. The red seal was the
most genuine looking of all. The work IN that
locke a. IL IL must have been done with a lathe.
But this work was the only ettemp., at imita-
ground of the figure 20 in the centre
Of the bill. which in the genuine To- the finest
kind OF l~atneiwork, was blurred. The white
lines We're so indistinct that they could scarcely
be seen, and there was little attempt to initiate
the geome,ric symmetry of the genuine. There
wa, just enough to deceive at a hasty glance.
The green back OF the note was not quite as
good. The ink was just a trifie darker than IL
was on the genuine note. but 1t was not darker
than the ink on some genuine notes. There was
more Of an attempt to initiate the lathe work
IN he back. and In some spots IL took u magni-
flying glass 10 show that the work was spurious.
The great difference in the note was In the
paper. The counterfeit contained no silk
threads. and the paper seemed harsher to the
tOuch. but with that II was a great deal nearer
to the genuine paper than Is the paper used by
recent counterfeiters who have printed their
counterfeits from plates. and who, according to
newspaper reports, made paper " exactly like"
the genuine Government paper.
Mr.. Morley said he would not part with his
note for a hundred dollars, He had refused that
several times, he said, but he did want to make
Mr.. Packard own up. He went with THE Sun
reporter TO Mr.. Packard's business college. Mr..
IJnrLa ~ Lob ID M Nha RnfA and a. a 1aliUhHad