This machine work is therefore the safest ear-mark there is for detection purposes; but it must be used intelligently. In examining this work on any suspected note, it is a pretty safe way for the examiner to begin at the centre of the curvilinear figures and then gradually fol low the lines around the circles, one within an other, carefully searching for any special de fects and for the discovery of any irregularity not patent to the naked eye. And he should also make careful and minute comparisons be tween the general designs on the genuine note and those on the suspected one.
Sometimes the whole face of a note (except the vignettes and dies) are tinted a pale red or some other color; but examination under a lens discloses the fact that this tint is composed of fine crossed or looped lines running clear across the face of the note. This is another species of machine work which is but poorly imitated by the most expert counterfeit engraver who has to depend upon his hands. This work, when genuine, shows the lines to be perfect in execution and in shading, while the spurious note bears evidence of imperfection in both re spects.
Parallel lines also afford a check. They are made by a parallel-ruling machine, which is governed by an index to regulate the width of the lines, and they are mathematically exact. They are always uniform, always regular and always exactly parallel — conditions which do not obtain when the counterfeiter undertakes to reproduce them by the process of hand-engrav ing. These parallel lines are used in shading the letters and figures on thegenuine notes into a perfectly even pale gray. They are also used to represent a clear sky or water; but crossed lines are used to represent cloudy or heavy skies. In genuine work these lines can always be counted, while such is not always the case with counterfeit notes, as the lines on them are often broken, blurred and irregular.
Some people rely on the vignettes as reliable ear-marks for detection purposes; but they make a mistake in doing so. The vignettes are the most artistic part of the whole note, and they are mostly hand-engraved, even on the genuine notes; so they may be almost perfectly imitated or reproduced— but that is not often the case. The vignettes on the national currency are made by the very finest artists in the country, and they are beyond the successful imitation or reproduction of any one but an artist of the first water; and, since the salaries which such artists can command at legitimate work are too satisfactory for them to resort to the rather risky business of counterfeiting themselves or lending their talents to others engaged in that hazardous outlawry, these would-be imitations are made by rather inferior artists and are nec essarily imperfect in many respects. Real vig
nettes have this advantage over spurious ones: They are never made but once, and are there fore uniform and always exactly the same. They are transferred to the cylinder, just as the lathe-work is, and then transferred (by use of the transfer press) from the cylinder to the note-plate, thus using one model all the time; but such is not possible with the spurious vignettes. They must be reproduced, and exact reproduction is very difficult, if not impossible. But, it being noticed that counterfeiters get along better in reproducing outdoor scenes than they do in reproducing portraits, the govern ment has very mingled its vignette work —making them consist of outdoor scenes, his torical pictures, portraits and allegorical figures, which it not only becomes difficult for counter feiters to imitate, but which furnishes a some what graduated scale of difficulties for them to surmount The engraving test is the best possible ear mark in the detection of counterfeits, for two very good and sufficient reasons: In the first place, the above-noted differences will always appear as long as counterfeiters have to rely upon hand-engraving while the government uses machine-engraving; and, in the second place, these counterfeiters will always have to rely upon hand-engraving, because machines for the purpose are too bulky and too expensive for them to handle,— considerations which will always place machine-engraving beyond their reach. If a man has $75,000 to $150,000 capital (the cost of a proper outfit of machinery for this work), he would hardly risk its investment in an illegitimate enterprise which might be swooped down upon at any moment by govern ment officers and utterly destroyed, with the leg acy of a long sentence in the penitentiary added. Hence, it may be pretty safely assumed that all the engraving done upon spurious note-plates will always be done by hand, and that this test can always be applied.