This is due to the fact that the former is done by machinery, while the latter is done by hand; and to the further fact that hand-engrav ing, even when aided by simple machinery, can never approach the beauty, exactness and gen eral perfection of machine-engraving. And yet although these very designs have bound up in them the chief safeguards which the govern ment has thrown around our national currency to protect it against being successfully counter feited, not one man in any 10 met upon the streets of our cities, much less among the rustic tillers of the soil, is familiar with either the character or the object of these beautiful de signs which are found upon our national cur rency. This fact is very aptly illustrated by the tests which are applied by different persons to determine whether a suspected note is spurious or genuine: one looks carefully for pen-holes; another scans it for signs of wear, and another scrutinizes the vignettes, while others examine the paper,— not knowing that all of these evi dences may be counterfeited successfully or imi tated so perfectly as to deceive almost anyone; but very few, if any, apply those real tests which involve the only truly and unmistakably distinc tive features of genuine notes. Hence, the alarming success of counterfeiters in passing their spurious products is not so much due to the fact that the excellence of their imitations of these distinctive features of genuine notes is prone to deceive the intelligent observer as it is due to the fact that the general public is igno rant concerning the construction, purpose, char acter and distinctive features of that difference which distinguishes the genuine from the spuri ous. Everything on the average national cur rency note, except the fine lines of engraving, may be successfully counterfeited; but these fine lines defy all impostors. All of the circles, ovals, squares and parallels, as well as the geo metrical lathe-work upon which the denomina tions are usually placed, are composed entirely of a perfect network of finely engraved lines which cross each other at such angles or ap proach each other at such distances as to pro duce the desired effect. These finely engraved lines constitute the chief, the distinguishing feature of the government's money-engraving, and they cannot be successfully counter feited.
It will be noticed in all genuine work that these fine lines can be traced by the use of a lens, throughout the figures,— not a line being ' broken, not a line losing itself in another line and not a line showing any irregularity what ever in its course, in its uniformity of curve and width or in its degree of shading. These lines may be either white upon a background of black, green or red; or they may be black, green or red upon a background of white; but they are always exact, always even and always uni form. They are made by a geometrical lathe which was invented by one Asa Spencer and introduced to the public about 1818.
This lathe is a perfect wonder; it produces patterns of almost every conceivable variety in form and figure; but this same fine quality of the lines clings to them in whatever form they may appear. So that, when it is remembered that this uniformity and uniqueness of execu tion is impossible in hand-engraving, the spuri ous note falls all to pieces under this test. The
striking difference between the genuine and the spurious is very natural from the simple fact that the one is mathematical and exact, while the other is mechanical and necessarily varied. The lathe does not engrave directly upon the note-plate, while the counterfeit engraver does. The lathe engraves upon a piece of soft steel one-eighth of an inch thick. After this piece of soft steel has been properly engraved by the lathe, the piece of engraved steel is hardened by a peculiar process; then (by means of a powerful machine called a transfer press) a cyl inder of soft steel is rolled over the hardened piece of engraved steel in such a manner that the engraving is transferred to the cylinder, which is then hardened; and, from this hardened cylinder the designs are transferred to the note plate by means of the transfer press. In this way the work is not only exact — mathematic ally exact and artistically perfect—but it is always uniform; for this cylinder acts as a perpetual model from which any number of plates can be transferred — each being an exact facsimile of all the others taken from that same cylinder. Hence all United States notes of any one series are exactly alike in every respect except the numbers and the signatures. And right there is where the counterfeiter falls down before the practised eye. He must do his engraving directly upon the note-plate — which imposes many insuperable difficulties; the lines cannot be made as perfect as they are in this lathe work, and the general effect of the print ing is inartistic in comparison with the impres sions taken from lathe-made plates. Even to the naked eye the appearance is more or less dull and sunken, or scratchy; and the figures are sure to be lighter or darker in spots, as the lines are heavier or lighter in places. The use of the lens in such cases discloses the fact that the lines are often broken, varied or irregular, either in size or course. Besides, it being im possible for any hand-engraver to produce two dies exactly alike, it happens that the spurious dies are not only not exact reproductions of the genuine lathe-made dies, but no two of the spurious dies are exactly alike; so that com+ parison, under the lens, between the dies on a suspected note (if it be spurious) and a gen uine note brings- out this difference so dearly that very little skill is required to detect and read it.
All the government dies used in printing any given series are exactly the same— all being transferred from the same cylinder, and they must therefore be exactly the same in every respect. This impossibility of making two dies separately and independently exactly alike by the hand-engraving process not only prevents the counterfeit dies from being like the genuine, but it also prevents any two counterfeit dies from being exactly alike, since the plates must be separately and independently engraved. But besides this absence of exactness in the repro duction of the dies, there is another notable feature of difference which is conspicuous for its presence in the genuine and for its absence from the spurious note; and that is the beauti ful clear-cut, raised impressions produced by the correct and uniform lines of the lathe-work which the counterfeiter cannot reproduce to save his life.