Deseret evening news. [volume] (Great Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1867-1920, 1908-08-29
MAKING BAD MONEY.
Mol Of Coupterfeter Growing More Hazardous-How To
Detect Spurious Bills and Coins

into a thousand pieces, and the murder
was out. Next day nearly every mor-
chant IN the city. where most Of these
coins had been put IN circulation, was
busily engaged, with many meledic-
tions, In testing all his gold coins with
q hammer.
Methods in this country would hard
ly seem 10 be so artistic. one of the
commonest Is plating . cent pieces
with gold and passing them off on the
newly landed foreigners as S. gold
pieces The silver coins are perhaps
most counterteited, for while the Sc
crct service raked IN $4,000 Of spurious
gold coins last year. the haul In sill
yer currency was double that amount.
Sometimes a counterfeit of the subsl-
diary coins Ia stamped out of copper
or brass and plated, but they are easy
of detection, as are those made from
pewter.
An extremely good test for counter
felt coin Is to cut sharply with the
mlllcd edge Of "a good coin against that
OF the suspected one. II 1t be bad
the metal will almost Immediately be-
gin to shave off Ii is u test with which
the public might become acquainted
TO It's profit, for II can be tried any
whore in a moment. All that is needed
is the provcrbial two coins to rub one
against the other
There are many ways of doctoring
good coin 10 tho gain Of the criminal
and the public loss. over In China, for
instance, the willy Oriental thinks II
worth while to cut Uncle Sans silver
dollars into halves, for the purpose of
scooplng bullion from the inside. They
are then filled up with metal of pro-
per weight, and fastened together so
carefully as practically to defy detec-
ton. In this country similar, but
even more delicate treatment Is given
to gold coins, as silver is considered
unworthy of notice by the artistic
worker in this line. plugging Is the
favorte method employed and the
larger denominations of gold coins,
especially $50 gold pieces, are selected.
The Interior of these coins is bored
out with exceedingly delicate instru-
mcnts, several dollars worth OF pure
gold being obtained from each. The
minute hole Is drilled in the edges,
and so eXpertly is it done, and so
neatly and skillfully is the interior
plugged with bad but weighty metal,
that these coins often defy detection
until they reach the hands of an eN-
pert. The puncture is so small and
SO cleverly aunealed with pure gold
that a very good pair of eyes is nee
ccssary to detect it.
For such work as this the methods
OF converting gOOd money INTO Duu
pass through an increasingly unar-
tistic series of efforts. Some counter
feits give the coins an acid bath, or
sweat" them out of a dollar or two
Of the good metal, and then pass them
along. The coins are genuine. of
course, but the sweating deprives them
Of the required weight These sweat
ed coins pass into circulation from
hand to hand until they reach the
banks or the subtreasuries, where they
are at once caught up by the coin
counters, and their career comes to "A
sudden ana abrupt close as coins of
the realm,
The wonder is not that there is
counterfeit coin in circulation. but
rather that the amount is constantly
decreasing and that through the efforts
of the secret service it Is fast APP
preaching the point where il will
be a negligible quantity. And il Is
a rather grim commentary on Ameri-
can ability that the great majority
of counterfoitors in the country arr
native horn. The foreigner is little
able to compete I'm this line apparently.
for out OF all the persons arrested by
the secret service last year for cuun
terfeiting nearly 10 per cent were
Americans. Italians and Russians
came next, but far in the rear.