The Savannah morning news., 1900-08-11

test in mind, note carefully the weight,
ring, size, impress. milling, and reeding.
all of which requisites may be taken in
with a glance, and one will always carry
about with him a pretty good 'detector.'
The men who make Il their business
to cheat the government out of gold adopt
several processes. l saw a coin recently
which had been filed so cleverly that
the fraud was apparent only upon the
closest examination. The ten-dollar and
twenty-dollar pieces are mostly used for
this operation. The coin was sawed
through from the edge by a saw of minute
proportions and exquisite fineness, the in
terror removed, and the cavity filled with
platinum, which brought the piece up 10
standard weight though it lost three
quarters of its value. 1t gave forth good
ring. If it had been flied with a base
metal other than platinum it would have
lacked the ring and been of light weight.
I'm some of these filed coins the exte-
rior walls of gold are thin as ordnery
writing paper. Once the cavity is filled,
the sides are clamped into the original po-
stion and brazed together. The edges
are ski1fully recovered with gold, the
reeding, or the minute corrugations or
ridges on the edge, restored, and the coin
will pass readily in the hands of the I'M
suspecting Sometimes only half of the
may be done with fine file or machine.
THE most dangerous tempered coins
are those which have been plugged.
don't mean plugged as the word is or
dinarily accepted, and as we see every
day in the silver coins. but where the
skillful counterfeiter gets out high as
one-siXth of the weight of a $40 or $50
piece. The coin is pierced by boring a
hol in the edge. and the gold extracted
ip,{p iS
then plugged with platinum, the surface
of the aperture covered with genuine
mental and the reeding restored with
file. Inasmuch as the coins are genuine,
and the minute hole in the edge so adroit
ly covered these tampered-with pieces
pass from hand to hand until the gold on
the edge wears off and the deception be-
comes apparent.
'Of the $40 gold-piece there are four
weIl-known eeunterfeits of the respective
issues, fourteen of the $40. thirty-five of
the IS. and seventeen of the $3.50. The 81
gold piece is out of general circulation,
but nine issues were counterfeted.
For example, there are two conterfeits
of the IS issue of 1874, made of platinum;
diameter thickness. and weight up TO the
standard, and heavily gold-plated. Coun-
terfeits of s. dated 1862 and 1869 are struck
from die weight and thickness correct,
and made of gold-plated platinum Those
dated 1881 and 1882 are the most dangerous
we have The weight of a So gold piece is
1873 grains. These counterfeits weigh but
three-tenth of a grain light, and were
worth, assayed value, SAB. The assay
value of many of the counterfeit pieces is
from SO to $3.50.
Some of the counterfeit coins are heavier
than standard weight, though this will
strike the average person as improbable.
A 80 piece weighs 25S grains. The coun-
terfeit of the date of 1855 weighs seven
grains in excess and has a fine appear
ance These heavy coins are made Of
platinum OF the $3.50 piece, look out for
those dated 1862. 1t is within one-half a
grain of standard weight. composed Of
platinum. heavily gold plated, and can be
detected only by observing the edges where
the gold may be worn off"