The Washington herald. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1906-1939, 1911-04-23
Considering Risks He Runs and Certainty
of Ultimate Capture and enlistment
His Trade Pays More Poorly
Than Honest Jobs

The exact chance Of any one person
being afflicted with a bad piece Of money
is naturally pretty hard to determine,
for the simple reason that no one, not
even the Secret Service, knows at any
one time just how much counterfeit cur
rency is In circulation. But from years
OF experience the government agents at
Washington have been able to work out
certain general figures. Along about six
or seven years ago. and general conditions
have not changed much since, Chief
John E. Wilkie, Of the Secret Service,
figured out roughly that in paper money
the proportion of bad to good was about
81 to 10000. and in coin somewhere be-
tween s. and g to s1oo,0 At first glance
that doesn't seem to be much, and it
isn't-until We try to realize how many
hundreds OF thousands of dollars there
are in circulation. Then 1t begins to
look large.
To get any fair idea of what the
counterfeiting proposition is We have
first got to know something about the
business itself from the counterfeiter' s
point of view. The making of bad money
Is INDUCED in all over the country. and
to certain extent even outside the
country. particularly In Italy. where
craving. But the bulk of it is done
right here In the United States.
The kind of money a man makes de-
ponds mostly on what part of the coun-
try he lives in. In the East, where the
paper circulation is greatest, bank notes
are chiefly counterfeited, with a little
silver on the side In the South and
Middle West the natural demand Is for
silver dollars and half dollars. Out IN
the far West the business is mainly
in gold, with few bills of any sort. A
good deal Of imitation silver is turned
out, too. This state OF affairs is an
entirely natural one. for the simple rea-
son that It Is always easiest for the
counterfeiter in any one region to cir
culate the sort of money which is most
abundant in that region. He gets rid Of
1t more quickly. since there is a greater
use for It. And 1t is safer. Once in a
while, of course, a particularly nervy
gang or individual tries gold in the East
or bills on the Pacific Coast, but COM
paratively seldom.
Not Much Profit.
How the proposition can possibly pay
is puzzling. The larger the coin or bill
to be counterfeited the greater the dan
ger of detection, and hence the need Of
a more expensive plant. The commonest
turning out of base metal coins-even
copper cents-but the operation is always
an expensive one. Silver. for instance,
cannot be successfully cast Base coins
with silver in them must therefore be
struck of with a steel die-a die repre-
senting days of work on the part of an
expert engraver. Then there must be
press to make the impression,
to say nothing of all the expenses of
running a chemical laboratory and keep
ing 1t secret.
There are two principal ways of max
ing counterfeit coins, with endless vari-
atoms of each. One is casting, the
other stamping the cold metal The lat
ter always produces better results, as
the coin is more accurate and more
clearly cut. In the casting process a
mold is generally made from a fresh
and genuine coin. In stamping. a die is
either cast or cut by hand-both opera
tons require hours and hours of care
full work, and then the counterfeit metal
is put in this die and struck with one
sharp blow of a heavy press.
Expert counterfeiters do the work so
we'll that the average person is easily
fooled. In making silver coins they use
a certain amount of silver and adjust
the alloy of the other metal so that the
finished product rings almost absolutely
true. Gold coins, being worth more, are