Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1910-01-29

bets number and its comparison number
No two bills are ever numbered alike.
Yet. three months ago the Bank OF
France began to find bills numbered
alikei
They had been accepted by its branches
at Marselle, Toulon Nice and Avignon,
over the counter. from runners and from
other banks. They had passed perfectly
through the various departments of the
bank in Paris. Only when they were be-
ing written off the registers previous to
destruction was the ominous fact dis
covered-there were quantities of dupii-
Gates.
They were counterfeits
But which were counterfeits"
The head of department told an as
tonishing detail in the privacy of his fam
jly New Year dinner. AT the beginning.
when we found two bills with the same
numbers. he said, I'VE just marked one
counterfeit and the other genuine. by
haZard-the resemblance was SO perfect
The bill counterfeted was the 1O0-franc
tS20p one of the type of 1880, supposed to
rose-colored backgrounds which Dupuis
and Duval had added to Baudry's mar
yelous blue vignettes.
The paper, though it does not possess
the American thread, was also consid-
cred iTfimitable. 1t was made by the
bank at its own works ar Biercy, which
produces no other kind of paper. True,
the Bank of France obigingly tsells
Biercy banknote paper To French colo
NAL and even foreign banks; but the
sheets are always numbered, and it is
taken as certain that all can be account
ed for.
1t is handmade paper, made sheet by
sheet. The water mark, in three tones
is produced by the banks own waffle
IRON device, and the secret composition
of the papers dough gives these bills
a peculiar metallic sound when crumpled
and characteristics resistance to the
touch difficult 10 describe but which all
bank clerks learn and recognize.
Yet here was that paper in the coun-
terfeits-so perfect that the colonial and
foreign banks arc said to be undergoing
the lndlgnity of a merely. formal in
quiry." How can they prove that they
used up all the paper they had bought
from Bfercy without calling in all their
outstanding bills, a troublesome and eX-
pensive procedure?
Here were Baudrys blue vignettes and
the Dunuis-Duval rose grounds so per
fectly done that orthochromatic photog-
raphy of higher class than known in
commerce was seen to be at the bottom
of it.
And. now counterfeits continuing to
rain on the bank, another formidab BILE
detail was noticed. The counterteits did
not bear a single set of numbers, such
as lone counterfeiters are often content
to put on their unique galvanos. The
first duplicates disclosed any quantity
of duplicates. But, as the duplicates
continued showering them without a
single triplicate, the experts were forced
to one of two outrageous conclusions:
Either the counterfeiters possessed the
bulky. complicated. exact and expensive
numbering machines of the bank itself,
or they were in presence of an utterly
new type of direct color photography that
merely reproduced each note a single
time. To make sure of such an ex-
PLANTATION would be euuiva lent TO re-
inventing the unknown process. Photo
graphic engagements showed unmistak-
able Photographic exactness of all de-
tails. but the other hand. traces Of
printing pressure were said to be found
on the paper.
On what paper?
What paper were they examining?, Per-
too xsrys,,