The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1913-04-18
ROBBINC THE
 GOLD COINS
Various Methods Employed h. CIude Plugging, Clipping
 and Sweating

The clipping of gold coins has re- gently given the government secret service a great deal of trouble Though very ancient industry, 1t has taken on new developments, some of which are most ingenious and extra ordinary, writes a, Washington co1're- spondent of the Hartford Times.
 For example, a while ago many dou- ble-eagles that came in for redemption through Varoius banks were found to be of less than la wful diameter-a fact which became instantly manifest when attempt was made to stack them in piles with ordinary twenty-dollar gold pieces. In other respects they showed no imperfection.
 This was the work of a man named Wilcox, who had invented a process whereby he was able to slice the rim off of a double eagle, the tire might be removed from a wheel. Or course, the corrugated edge, called the reed ing, was taken off incidentally and thus 1t was necessary to re-reed the InutiIated coin in a machine. By this means it's appearance was perfectly restored, only its diameter being al- tered and nothing wrong with it was discovered by the casual observer.
 Wilcox was content with moderate profits, taking care not to rob any piece Of more than $1 of it's intrinsic value. He went from city to city
 
 1dence from time to t1me) and ob- tained the raw material for his work by depositing money in banks and drawing 1t out in gold. His wife passed most of the altered pieces in dry goods shops, and the rims, melted in a cruofble, were sold to dealers in bullion The apparatus employed, when a move was contemplated. was easily taken apart and packed in a trunk On one occasion $500 worth of
 
 one batch. But the business came to a stop soon afterward with the arrest of Wilcox in Chicago.
 Clever as was the scheme above de- ecribed. 1t was surpassed tn ingenuity by that of a woman in Philadelphia. who hired a room with steam power, and with a small drill dug out the in side of s and $1o gold pieces, leaving only 6 thin shell For this purpose she would bore a little hole through the edge. and, after filling the hollow with lead, she would cover the open ing with gold, so that practically no sign. Of the operation remained. The amount taken from a, $10 gold piece was about S7.B0: from a $5 coin @3 would be extracted. The woman was finally caught; but the secret service people admit that here was just about tthe smartest dodge ever practtced at fthe expense of the currency.
 For tricks that are vain in the cOUnISTIS1I4nS aI0d CIpp1nS or cons the Chinese are famous. But the most remarkable thing they ever did in this line was the reconstruction" as it might be termed, of gold coins. A few years ago a gang of pig-tatIed Or1en- tels devised a process whereby 8 dou- Ible-eagle was cut in two through the edge, the inside of it being thereupon <rouged out. The piece, being thus re- dIced to a hollow shell in halves, was filled with lead; a thin rim Of gold was soIdered upon 1t to disguise the cut edge and the corrugatfons of the rnintfng were renewed with a reeding machine. A coin treated in this man Ener was a veritab1e work of art.
 By this mtans about $15 worth of gold was obtained from every $20 piece treated. The fault of the pro cess lay in the fact that lead is too light An improvement on 1t, adopted ihy Yankee experts, consisted in sub stituting platinum (which Is heavier than goId) for the lead. At that pe- .riod Cabout 1sSO) platinum was cheap Ter, costing less than half as much as 1 gold. Today it is worth much more than the yellow metal. and so could mot be utilized economically for such Ia purpose
 4 method somewhat similar, though Jess satisfa ctory, Is to substitute for the interior portion of the gold piece a core in the shape of g. disk of silver, the coin being split for the purpose az in fF1e other case, This process is