A MODE OF PREPARING BANK NOTES, BILLS OF EXCHANGE, AND OTHER PAPERS TO PREVENT COUNTERFEITING BY PHOTOGRAPHY AND ITS KINDRED PROCESSES, AND A MODE OF PREPARING AN INK FOR THE SAME
Year: 1857

page_text: LETTERS PATENT to Christopher Dicran Seropyan, of New Haven, in the
State of Connecticut, one of the United States of America, for the
Invention of "A MODE OF PREPARING BANK NOTES, BILLS OF EXCHANGE, AND
OTHER PAPERS TO PREVENT COUNTERFEITING BY PHOTOGRAPHY AND ITS KINDRED
PROCESSES, AND A MODE OF PREPARING AN INK FOR THE SAME."
"
PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by the said Christopher Dicran
Seropyan at the Office of the Commissioners of Patents, with his
Petition, on the 22nd June 1857.
I, CHRISTOPHER DICRAN SEROPYAN, of New Haven, in the State of
Connecticut, one of the United States of America, do hereby declare the
nature of the said Invention for "A. MODE OF PREPARING BANK NOTES, BILLS
OF EXCHANGE, AND OTHER PAPERS TO PREVENT COUNTERFEITING BY PHOTOGRAPHY
& ITS KINDRED PROCESSES, & A MODE OF PREPARING AN INK FOR THE SAME," to be
as follows:-
It consists in using two or more colors which do not reflect nor transmit,
but absorb the chemical rays of light; one of which shall be applied to the
paper or other material, either by printing, staining, or tinting, so as to cover
the surface with a tint or ground of a red, orange, or yellow shade or color,
while an ink of a different color or shade from the tint or surface color shall
be used for printing the other parts of the note, i.e., the obligatory and
ornamental parts upon the said surface; the said ink consisting of such

page_text: ingredients as will render it equally or more fugitive than the color forming
the tint or surface color of the paper. For this purpose an ink has been
invented composed of a black precipitate, produced by the action of an alkali
upon sulphate of iron in aqueous solution; this is washed with water and
mixed with gallic acid or extract of logwood. This mixture well dried is
then ground in boiled linseed oil or printers varnish. If not found suffi-
ciently black a little blue may be added. Other organic or metallic substances
may also be employed, provided they possess the required relative properties
of absorption and fugitiveness to the other shade or color.
SPECIFICATION filed in pursuance of the conditions of the Letters Patent,
and of an Order of the Lord Chancellor, by the said Christopher Dicran
Seropyan in the Great Seal Patent Office on the 22nd January 1858.
TO ALL TO WHOM THESE PRESENTS SHALL COME, I, CHRISTOPHER
DICRAN SEROPYAN, of New Haven, in the State of Connecticut, one of the
United States of America, send greeting.
executors,
WHEREAS Her most Excellent Majesty Queen Victoria, by Her Letters
Patent, bearing date the Twenty-second day of June, in the year of our Lord
One thousand eight hundred and fifty-seven, in the twenty-first year of Her
reign, did, for Herself, Her heirs and successors, give and grant unto me,
the said Christopher Dicran Seropyan, Her special licence that I, the said
Christopher Dicran Seropyan, or my executors, administrators, and assigns,
or such others as I, the said Christopher Dicran Seropyan,
administrators, and assigns, should at any time agree with, and no others,
from time to time and at all times thereafter during the term therein
expressed, should and lawfully might make, use, exercise, and vend, within
the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, the Channel Islands, and
Isle of Man, an Invention for "A MODE OF PREPARING BANK NOTES, BILLS OF
EXCHANGE, AND OTHER PAPERS TO PREVENT COUNTERFEITING BY PHOTOGRAPHY AND
ITS KINDRED PROCESSES, AND A MODE OF PREPARING AN INK FOR THE SAME,"
upon the condition (amongst others) that I, the said Christopher Dicran
Seropyan, or my executors or administrators, by an instrument in writing
under my, or their, or one of their hands and seals, should particularly
describe and ascertain the nature of the said Invention, and in what
manner the same was to be performed, and cause the same to be filed in the
Great Seal Patent Office within six calendar months next and immediately
after the date of the said Letters Patent.
"

page_text: NOW KNOW YE, that I, the said Christopher Dicran Seropyan, do hereby
declare the nature of my said Invention, and in what manner the same is to
be performed, to be particularly described and ascertained in and by the
following statement:-
The nature of my Invention consists in using two or more colours, which
do not reflect nor transmit but absorb the chemical rays of light; one of
which shall be applied to the paper cither by printing, staining, or other mode,
so as to cover the surface with a tint or ground of a red, orange, or yellow
shade or color, while an ink of a different color or shade from the tint or
surface color shall be used for printing the other parts of the note, that is, the
obligatory and ornamental parts upon the said surface; the said ink consisting
of such ingredients as will render it equally or more fugitive than the color
forming the tint or surface color of the paper. I have for this purpose
invented an ink, which is composed of a black precipitate, produced by the
action of an alkali upon sulphate of iron in aqueous solution; this is washed
with water and mixed with gallic acid or extract of logwood. This mixture
well dried is then ground in boiled linseed oil or painters' varnish. If not found
sufficiently black a little blue may be added. Other organic or metallic sub-
stances may be also employed, provided they possess the required relative
properties of absorption and fugitiveness to the other shade or colour.
Bank notes, bills of exchange, and all papers or similar substances that
could otherwise be counterfeited by photography or its kindred processes,
when thus prepared cannot be copied. For so long as the tint or ground and
the vignettes and lettering remain together, a distinct impression of the latter
cannot be obtained, but only an indistinct and blurred one of the whole
coloring, because both the colors neither transmit nor reflect but absorb the
chemical rays of light.
In order, therefore, to obtain a copy sufficiently clear and distinct to answer
the purpose of the counterfeiter, the tint or ground covering the surface upon
which the printing, is done must first be removed and the white surface
exposed. When the paper is prepared by my mode this cannot be done, for
in the process of removing the ground color, as aforesaid, the fugitive ink will
also be removed and the lettering be thus obliterated.
I am aware that bank notes, &c. have been printed on tinted paper with
a black ink, both of which absorbed the chemical rays of light, and so long as
these colors remain unaffected no photographic counterfeit can be made; but
in this case, the ink being less fugitive than the tint or surface color of the
paper, the latter could be removed without affecting the ink, and the counter-
feit made.

page_text: I am also aware that an ink equally or more fugitive, than the color of the
paper has been used, but in this case the ink transmits or reflects, and does
not absorb the chemical rays of light.
But in no case to my knowledge bas any mode been adopted combining
the advantages of having the colors possessed of the property of absorbing,
i.e., not reflecting, and transmitting those rays at the same time that the tint
or surface color of the paper has been less fugitive than the other or printing
color.
Having now described my Invention and its advantages, what I claim
under the above in part recited Letters Patent is the application and use of
two or more colors or shades in the mode herein-before described or any other
substantially the same, when said colors shall equally or in nearly the same
degree absorb, that is, shall not transmit or reflect said chemical rays, and the
surface or ground color shall be less fugitive than the printing color or ink.
I also claim the use and employment of a block precipitate of iron produced
as within described, or by any other mode, in combination with boiled linseed
oil or painters' varnish, to be used as an ink.
In witness whereof, I, the said Christopher Dicran Seropyan, have
hereunto set my hand and seal, on this Twenty-fourth day of June,
in the year of our Lord One thousand eight hundred and fifty-seven.
CHRISTOPHER DICKAN SEROPIAN. (L.S.)