Daily inter mountain., 1899-10-25
SILVER DOLLARS.

Washington Special Chicago Journal:
The disparity between the bullion ana
the face value of silver dollar has in
creased the activity of counterfeiters in
competing with the government minis.
There is a profit of nearly so per cent Ill
manufacturing dollars from real silver.
BY the addition of the proper impression
/ from correct die the silver disk is made
to represent. and ITO be Interchangeable
With dollars worth of gold or its equl-
valent This being the ease. what pro-
lection has the government against the
manufacture in secret of large amounts
of silver money which cannot be dlstln-
guished from the genuine article even
by an expert? When this question was
I presented to John E. Williie, OF the Unit
ed States Secret Service he said: 'Dihe
principal protection of the government
lies in the practical inability to make a
correct reproduction of the dies from
which the dollars are struck. At nrst
sight this might not seem such diflieuit
! matter. There are good Workmen out
side the government employ as WeIf as
in it. But tn fact is, the man who made
the original die for the silver dollar
would not be able to reproduce it exactly.
! The various dies used by the government
/! at the various mints are reprodqceu
( from the original die by mechanical pro-
cesseS. They are stamped into hot steel
/ by the impact of the cold steel of the Or
| iginal lie. This insures a perfectly ac-
curate reproduction. A favorite method
of counterfeiting is to make a die by2the
! so-called 'hot-steel' process. cold 8sll-
yer coin is pressed into highly heated
steel. which is afterward hardened and
tempered. This is an imitation of the
governments method of reproducing it's
| dies, but the result is never satisfactory
because the silver is too soft to make
clear and deep impression on the hot
| steel, as does the cold steel of the orig
| nal die. The coins made from one OF
! these dies have a shallow appearances.
The letters and design do not stand out
/ far enough"
| The inspector took out from a drawer
| in his desk a coin of the kind described.
! He placed it between a good dollar. and
the difference was at once apparent Tn
] der the magnifying glass the defects Of
t the imitation We're more pronounced. The
! letters around the border We're round on
! top instead of being fiat and there was Il
general lack of sharpness in the impress
! sion. The expert detects a coin of this
! sort in an instant. "Now. here is one
from cut die" said Mr.. Wlkie. taking
| another dollar from the drawer The
coin had the general appearance of u
good dollar. and rung properly when
! thrown on the desk. 1t was made of
| good silver. "fhe trouble with this man..
said the Inspector, was that he was not
! satisfied with the governments portrait
! of the Goddess of Liberty. He stuck to
! his copy all right until he got to the rib
| bon at the back of her laurel wreath. He
put a finish on the edge of the ribbon.
while on the genuine coin the ribbon is
plain. This attempt at Improvement
made the coin distinguishable at once,
| although there We're other small de-
; fects of a less noticeable kind, as
! crooked top to one of the T's. There are
always some little changes or defects i'll
| the best of them"
Mr. Wikie does not think there are
many counterfeit silver dollars in circu-
lation. The secret servic people have
picked up about $500 during the last year
or so. He says the bogus article may
pass from hand to hand for a time unde-
! tected. but as soon as it comes to bank
it is at once discovered.
| ''Of course, the west is the place where
private mints are most likely to be ntain-
tained,' Mr.. Wilkie continued. And
there is no doubt a good deal of counter
feiting done in Mexico. The American
dollar is worth two Mexican dollars; and
a favorite trick is to restamp Mexican
dollars, thus doubling their value"
Some Of the far western papers have
at times printed stories to the effect that
thousands of silver dollars. as perfect as
any turned out by the government were
being made and put into circulation.
And thus they claimed that there had
| been to a certain extent a realization of
the democratic hopes for unlimited COIN
age Of silver at the ratio OF Is to /, with
out waiting for the consent of this or any
other nation. But Mr.. Wilkie says that,
aside from the above mentioned difficult
ties in counterfeiting, it would be impOs-
sible for any large plant to be operated
for any length of time without coming
to the attention of the secret service
operatives. 1t is generally admitted,
however, that an adjustment of the ratio
between the actual and the face value of
the silver dollar would serve to discour-
age greatly the business Of gentlemen
who deal in "the queer"