IMPROVEMENTS IN THE PREPARATION OF PAPER WHICH CANNOT BE TAMPERED WITH FOR THE REMOVAL OF WRITING THEREON WITHOUT DETECTION
Year: 1867

page_text: LETTERS PATENT to John Jameson, of 10, Catherine Terrace, Gateshead,
Engincer, for the Invention of "IMPROVEMENTS IN THE PREPARATION OF
PAPER WHICH CANNOT BE TAMPERED WITH FOR THE REMOVAL OF WRITING
THEREON WITHOUT DETECTION."
Sealed the 20th March 1868, and dated the 26th September 1867.
PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by the said John Jameson at the
Office of the Commissioners of Patents, with his Petition, on the 26th
September 1867.
I, JOHN JAMESON, of 10, Catherine Terrace, Gateshead, Engineer, do
hereby declare the nature of the said Invention for "IMPROVEMENTS IN THE
PREPARATION OF PAPER WHICH CANNOT BE TAMPERED WITH FOR THE REMOVAL OF
WRITING THEREON WITHOUT DETECTION," to be as follows:-
A variety of methods have been proposed for preventing or detecting the
extraction of ink from paper which has been written on, as, for instance, the
use of chemicals in or on the paper having no action on each other in the
dry state, but brought into action by being wetted and producing distinct
visible effects; also the printing on the paper to be used of some elaborate and
intricate design which would wash off in water or be acted on by any chemicals
which would discharge ordinary ink; but all these processes, so far as I know

page_text: and believe, are either directed to the preservation of ordinary ink or must
be used with special inks, the action of which might be imitated or are liable
to other objections, and are inoperative or more or less defective in their
operation if paper, or ink, or both be prepared for the purpose of committing
fraud.
My Invention consists in the preparation of a paper which would indicate
any tampering therewith whatever. I print a design or designs in different
colors in or on different media, the nature of the colors and the media being
such that part of the design will be effaced or injured by the action of
heat, part by the action of chemical gases, part by attrition, part by the
action of water, alcohol, ether, or other solvents. First, for the identification of
the prepared paper I prefer to provide it with any or all of the usual means
of identification requiring costly machinery to imitate, such as watermarks,
colored layers, or internal designs; I then either coat it in different parts with
different films and print upon it a minute and elaborate faint design or
designs of such composition as that either part of the film or part of the ink
of the design shall be subject to chango by the action of heat, part being
subject to change by the action of chemical gases, part removeable by india-
rubber or other similar appliance, part of it being easily soluble in water, and
part at least easily soluble in such other solvents as alcohol, or ether, or
turpentine, or others, so that if the paper be tampered with in any way at
least part of the design will be effaced or injured. Or I suspend different
coloring matters in different media, and print therewith a design or series of
designs on the ordinary surface of a watermarked or otherwise easily
identified paper without the films before referred to, selecting the coloring
matter or matters and the media in which they are suspended so that either
the one or the other at certain parts of the design shall be subject to visible
chango by the action of various solvents or by heat, or friction, or chemical
gases. The effect of this preparation of paper would be that any effort to
coat it with a film from which ink could be removed would deface or dissolve
at least part of the design, and any attempt to remove ink of whatever nature,
and whether prepared for the purpose of committing fraud or not, would be
inet by a change occurring in the design on the paper, and which design
could not be restored without very great difficulty. I prefer to make the
design or designs very minute in character, so that confusion with the matter
written would not be liable to occur. For special purposes paper might be
prepared on which india rubber could be used without injury to the design, or
other of the precautions might be omitted if the opportunity for tampering with

page_text: the paper so used were not likely to exist. The media which I employ are
such as starch, gum, resins, paraffin, napthaline, and wax, and the coloring
matters are such as lampblack, blacklead, lake color, bichromate of potash,
and mercurial, arsenical, and iodine colors.
SPECIFICATION in pursuance of the conditions of the Letters Patent, filed
by the said John Jameson in the Great Seal Patent Office on the
26th March 1868.
TO ALL TO WHOM THESE PRESENTS SHALL COME, I, JOHN
JAMESON of 10, Catherine Terrace, Gateshead, Engineer, send greeting.
WHEREAS Her most Excellent Majesty Queen Victoria, by Iler Letters
Patent, bearing date the Twenty-sixth day of September, in the year of our
Lord One thousand eight hundred and sixty-seven, in the thirty-first year of
Her reign, did, for Herself, Her heirs and successors, give and grant unto me,
the said John Jameson, Her special licence that I, the said John Jameson,
my executors, administrators, and assigns, or such others as I, the said John
Jameson, my executors, 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 "IMPROVEMENTS IN
THE PREPARATION OF PAPER WHICH CANNOT BE TAMPERED WITH FOR THE REMOVAL
OF WRITING THEREON WITHOUT DETECTION," upon the condition (amongst others)
that I, the said John Jameson, 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.
NOW KNOW YE, that I, the said John Jameson, do hereby declare the
nature of the said Invention, and in what manner the same is to be performed,
to be particularly described and ascertained in aud by the following statement
thereof, that is to say :-
A variety of methods have been proposed for preventing or detecting the
extraction of ink from paper which has been written on, as, for instance, the
use of chemicals in or on the paper having no action on each other in the dry

page_text: state, but brought into action by being wetted, and producing distinct visible
effects; also the printing on the paper to be used of some elaborate and
intricate design which would wash off in water or be acted on by any
chemicals which would discharge ordinary ink; but all these processes, so far
as I know and believe, are either directed to the preservation of ordinary ink
or must be used with special inks, the action of which might be imitated or
are liable to other objections, and are inoperative or more or less defective in
their operation if paper, or ink, or both be prepared for the purpose of
committing fraud.
My Invention consists in the preparation of a paper which would indicate
any tampering therewith whatever. I print a design or designs in different
colors in or on different media, the nature of the colors and the media being
such that part of the design will be effaced or injured by the action of heat,
part by the action of chemical gases, part by attrition, part by the action of
water, alcohol, ether, or other solvents. First, for the identification of the
prepared paper I prefer to provide it with any or all of the usual means of
identification requiring costly machinery to imitate, such as watermarks,
colored layers, or internal designs; I then either coat it in different parts with
different films, and print upon it a minute and elaborate faint design or
designs of such composition as that either part of the film or part of the ink
of the design shall be subject to change by the action of heat, part being
subject to change by the action of chemical gases, part removeable by india-
rubber or other similar appliance, part of it being easily soluble in water, and
part at least easily soluble in such other solvents, as alcohol, or ether, or
turpentine, or others, so that if the paper be tampered with in any way at least
part of the design will be effaced or injured. Or I suspend different coloring
matters in different media, and print therewith a design or series of designs on the
ordinary surface of a watermarked or otherwise easily identified paper without
the films before referred to, selecting the coloring matter or matters and the
media in which they are suspended, so that either the one or the other at
certain parts of tho design, shall be subject to visible change by the action of
various solvents, or by heat or friction or chemical gases. The effect of this
preparation of paper would be that any effort to coat it with a film from which
ink could be removed would deface or dissolve at least part of the design,
and any attempt to remove ink of whatever nature and whether prepared for
the purpose of committing fraud or not would be met by a change occurring in
the design on the paper, and which design could not be restored without very
great difficulty. I prefer to make the design or designs very minute in

page_text: character, so that confusion with the matter written would not be liable to
occur.
For special purposes paper might be prepared on which india-rubber could
be used without injury to the design, or other of the precautions might be
omitted if the opportunity for tampering with the paper so used were not
likely to exist.
Having thus described the nature of my Invention I will proceed more
particularly to describe the manner in which the same may be carried into
effect.
For the more perfect explanation of the precautions which I employ I will
enumerate some of the frauds which my Invention is intended to provide against.
A variety of processes have been made known by means of which paper
may be prepared so that any attempt made to remove ordinary writing.
therefrom should be liable to produce a change in the appearance of the paper
by means of which such attempt would be indicated, but while these processes
provide more or less successfully against frauds practised after the written
document has been produced, they are not efficient as against fraud practised
in the writing itself or against operations with the paper or ink, or both
practised before the writing upon which it is intended to operate has been
made. For instance, in the paper protected by being colored to an uniform
tint by the coloring matter of ordinary ink the protection is inoperative if an
ink composed of gum arabic and some inert coloring, such as lampblack or
blacklead be used, because this ink may be washed off with water without
affecting the protective colouring. This description of ink it is manifest also
renders entirely inoperative tho safeguards. obtained by the introduction of.
chemicals into the substance of the paper, which produce a visible reaction.
with such other chemicals as would discharge ordinary ink, and such paper is
also liable to the objection that if. it be operated upon by chemicals before it
is written upon the protective chemicals may be extracted or rendered more
or less inert. A paper has been made by printing in delible or fugitive colors,
a design or designs which would be washed away in water or destroyed by
the action of such chemicals as would discharge ordinary ink, but although
this paper is a more or less effectual protection against the simple process of
fraud before referred to, in order to render it effectual against any tampering
whatever further precautions are required which have not hitherto been adopted;
firstly, it is necessary that the designs should be of such a character as
would not be unchanged in appearance, and yet rendered insoluble by means
of such application as bichromate of potash and exposure to light or chrome

page_text: alum, for if damping the paper by suspension in damp air and then dusting
on the bichromate and a further process of damping would lead at last
to the possibility of wetting with impunity, it is manifest that the ink before
described may be at once used on such parts of the document as may be desired;
it is in the next place necessary that the design should be disfigured or
changed in appearance by such solvents as alcohol, cether, benzine, chloroform,
turpentine, and others, because if it be not so a writing may be made with
such a medium as Canada balsam thinned with alcohol, and colored with some
inert coloring matter which would wash off in a solvent which would not touch
the protective design, or the paper might be filmed, by which I mean coated
with such a material as india-rubber dissolved in benzole or gutta percha in
chloroform or other material capable in a suitable solvent of forming a film,
and from which an ink soluble in water might be safely removed; the paper
is then not perfectly secure without protection against the action of such
solvents as mercury, which although they might not be used for filming might
yet suffice to remove the colouring matter of a fraudulently prepared ink with
so slight a disfigurement to the paper as would be scarcely perceptible or
without disfigurement at all. Paper responding to all the requirements I have
mentioned might yet be very slightly disfigured by writing thereon with such
an ink as could be wholly removed by attrition; to guard against this part of
the design might be made to yield to this treatment by printing with india-
rubber dissolved in benzole. Fradulent writing may also be made which
would disappear at a heat less than would be required to injure paper, and
I guard against this by making part of the design subject to change by the
action of heat. Chemical gases, as is well known, will cause the disappearance
of color in many chemical substances which could be used to form inks, and
therefore in the design or in the paper there should be reagents which would
respond by disfigurement to such application. Now I provide against all or
such of these processes of fraud as there may be opportunity for or probability
of the application of as follows:-I print a design or designs in different colors
in or on different media, the nature of the colors and the media being such
that part of the design will be effaced or injured by the action of water, part
by the action of other, chloroform, alcohol, or other such solvents, or mercury,
or by a moderate heat, or by chemical gases, or by attrition, or by the
application and removal of chemicals such as bichromate of potash or others,
and to effect this I apply a design or series of designs in films to a paper water-
marked or provided with other means of identification requiring costly
machinery to imitate, and which may also be provided during its manufacture

page_text: or afterwards with such protective chemicals as will produce a stain by the
application of certain other chemicals, as is well understood, as in the paper
known as Barclay's paper, for instance, described in Specification No. 1390
in the year 1859. The filming materials which I employ are such as gum
arabic and starch, the latter being used to render the films more suitable for
writing on, gutta percha, india-rubber, gum damma, Canada balsam, gelatine,
with glycerine, albumen, paraffin, wax, and others, suspended in suitable
solvents, as is well understood; I then print thereon a design or series of
designs in a variety of different inks, and the inks which I employ are made
of such coloring matters as lampblack, blacklead, lake color, aniline color,
bichromate of potash, biniodide of mercury, realgar, orpiment, and other
arsenical colors, red oxide of mercury, salts of copper, precipitated gold,
hematoxylin, or others, whether used before in the preparation of safety paper
or not, suspended in such media as I have described as composing the films.
And in order to make the solution in a slight degree of any of the media or
the films more easily detected if a highly sensitive paper be required I attach
the coloring matters after coating with the films and printing the separate
designs in different media by means of dusting on through stencil plates or in
any other convenient manner. I prefer to print the films and external designs
by means of rollers, but this may be accomplished by any other convenient
process.
If the paper be not required to be very highly sensitive the films before
referred to may be omitted, and such other of the protections may be omitted
as may be desired.
The paper which I prefer to employ for general purposes I prepare as
follows:-I take a distinctly watermarked thick white paper, and film it all
over with a thin film of gum arabic and starch, very slightly colored with the
coloring matter of logwood.
I form inks by thinning Canada balsam with alcohol and coloring, for one
ink with lampblack, for another with lake color, for another with biniodide of
mercury, and for another with aniline blue. I form other inks with a mixture
of starch and gum in water and colored respectively with red oxide of mercury,
aniline blue, sulphate of copper, and coloring matter of logwood. I form
an ink composed of paraffin dissolved in benzole colored with aniline blue, and
a gelatinous ink without coloring matter of gelatine dissolved in water; I then
print upon the filmed paper before described from a series of rollers, each one
applying a separate design in a different ink, but so arranged as that on the
completion of the printing with the inks I have described the whole shall

page_text: form a series of repetitions of one compound design in intersecting wavy lines.
I print last with the gelatinous uncolored ink, and while it is still wet I apply
a minute quantity of precipitated gold so as to give it a surface coloring.
In witness whereof, I, the said John Jameson, have hereunto set my hand
and seal, this Twenty-fourth day of March, in the year of our Lord
One thousand eight hundred and sixty-eight.
JOHN JAMESON. (L.B.)