The Bamberg herald. [volume] (Bamberg, S.C.) 1891-1972, 1915-10-28

ed to leave Los Angeles he threw
most of his plant in the sea. Other
parts of it he carried to Chicago,
and buried it on an island in a part
of that city. Still more of the plant,
the plate in particular, he took to
| the British Northwest and buried
J them where we finally found them.
Then he came to New York and
| bought ticket for the Dutch West
Indies, where he intended to settle
down with the proceeds of his coun-
| terfeiting operations. He was ar
rested as he boarded steamer. He
told me he intended to remain honest
| the remainder of his days.
When the barber left Los Angeles
he failed to destroy the inevitable de-
tail, the Identification mark of his
work. which in this instance consist
ed of dogs hair. He made his bills
by printing on onion skin paper, the
| front representation of bill on one
piece and the rear representation on
| another. Then, before Joining the
| impressions, he would place between
the papers a substitute for the little
red and blue silk threads so common
lv noticed in our notes. The sub
stitute consisted of hairs cut from
the back of his black dog.
Immediately a secret service agent
touched one of thes bills he felt the
straight, wiry hair of the dog instead
of the fine silk threads used by tn.
government in it's currency. Then,
too, the dogs hairs were. cut OH
clean at the ends, whereas the silk
strands in the governments notes
are always unravelled at the ends
like any piece of silk thread. At this
point it may be of interest to the
public to read that each silk thread
in the governments bills consists OF
more than a dozen strands of ma
terial as it comes from the silk worm.
(Another detail that is often over
looked by the counterfeiters.)
However, the enumerationi of this
defect should serve only as a warn
ing to those who contemplate the
business of manufacturing spurious
money
The most dangerous coin counter
feiter with which the government
has had to deal was an Italian jew
eller in New York city. He made a
ten-dollar gold piece of 500 fineness
in the body of the article. (The gov
ernment standard is 900 fne.) Yet
the imitation was very accurate, and
in order to have the weight correct
he made the coin a whit larger than
the government measure required.
Then, too, he made a rim, commonly
called the reeding for the coin. This
| rim was of the exact fineness Of the
government ten-dollar gold pieces.
The jewellers object in making
the rim, which he soldered onto the
| body Of the coin, was, of course, to
! throw the secret service men off the
trail when they made an assay of
the rim of the counterfeit coin and
found the gold thereon to be of the
standard fneness..
The jewellers coin had a rounded
| rim, and not one that rose at right
angles from the surface Of the body
| of the coin, as in the genuine ar
ticle.
He sent his little daughter out to
pass the coins in different shops in
the East Side of New York. When
she was apprehended the news filter
ed around to the jeweller in time for
him to destroy evidence which had
we obtained would have resulted in
his conviction. A federal jury de-
cided that we nad IalleQ 70 present
sufficient evidence upon which to con-
vict him of making the counterfeit
money, and the jeweller was dis
charged. The rounded reeding OF
| rim was the most pronounced defect
in his work. The jeweller laughed
a hearty Italian laugh as he left the
court room. His kinsmen and friends
were there in goodly numbers and
joined him in the laugh.
That was all in the days work.
Still, the future events that brought
the jeweller and me into contact
again in the same court room serves
as an answer to the often-repeated
|