Precautions against counterfeiting - 1878 style
PhillyJoe
Posts: 2,705 ✭✭✭✭
"I have long been impressed that the worst danger which threatens our gold coin, from counterfeiters, is the filling with an inferior metal or alloy.By this art the piece presents genuine exteriors, but the inner part having been removed, a disk of platinum, pure or alloyed, is inserted in its place and closed with a ribbon of gold. It is, therefore, partly genuine and partly counterfeit.
The largest chance of spoilation of course occurs with the twenty-dollar piece, but the pieces of ten and five dollars have also been filled. So far the mischief has been very limited, as it requires first class workman, but pieces of this sort are the most difficult to detect.
Some experiments were made at the Philadelphia mint in 1860 to determine whether this fraud might not be prevented by materially lessening tha thickness of the coin and consequently increasing the diameter, at the same time giving the disks a slight concavity, so as to make the piece of a minimum thickness at the center. A pair of dies were engraved for the half-eagle and a few specimens were prepared on this basis. Nothing further was done, for in fact in the very next year, gold disappeared from circulation and has so continued, until we are now on the eve of resuming its use. I have therefore thought it desirable to experiment still farther in this line, and to this end experimental dies are being prepared for the half and quarter eagle denominations. The larger piece will be expanded to nearly the size of the present eagle and the smaller piece will be the diameter of the present three-dollar piece.
These measures would make the planchet so thin that sawing out the interior would be a critical, not to say impossible, feat. At the same time the coins would be thick enough at the raised border to be easily taken up by the fingers and stiff enough to resist bending.
The dimensions of our coins have never been a matter of legal enactment, and alteration could be made, if so desired, with the approval of the Secretary of the Treasury.
-H. R. Linderman
Director of the Mint
June 30, 1878
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Two things struck me with this letter:
1. Who was the schmuck that decided to counterfeit the coins by replacing the gold with platinum?
2. Clad coinage is not a new idea. Counterfeiters thought of it 100 years before it was implemented.
Joe
The largest chance of spoilation of course occurs with the twenty-dollar piece, but the pieces of ten and five dollars have also been filled. So far the mischief has been very limited, as it requires first class workman, but pieces of this sort are the most difficult to detect.
Some experiments were made at the Philadelphia mint in 1860 to determine whether this fraud might not be prevented by materially lessening tha thickness of the coin and consequently increasing the diameter, at the same time giving the disks a slight concavity, so as to make the piece of a minimum thickness at the center. A pair of dies were engraved for the half-eagle and a few specimens were prepared on this basis. Nothing further was done, for in fact in the very next year, gold disappeared from circulation and has so continued, until we are now on the eve of resuming its use. I have therefore thought it desirable to experiment still farther in this line, and to this end experimental dies are being prepared for the half and quarter eagle denominations. The larger piece will be expanded to nearly the size of the present eagle and the smaller piece will be the diameter of the present three-dollar piece.
These measures would make the planchet so thin that sawing out the interior would be a critical, not to say impossible, feat. At the same time the coins would be thick enough at the raised border to be easily taken up by the fingers and stiff enough to resist bending.
The dimensions of our coins have never been a matter of legal enactment, and alteration could be made, if so desired, with the approval of the Secretary of the Treasury.
-H. R. Linderman
Director of the Mint
June 30, 1878
**********************************************************
Two things struck me with this letter:
1. Who was the schmuck that decided to counterfeit the coins by replacing the gold with platinum?
2. Clad coinage is not a new idea. Counterfeiters thought of it 100 years before it was implemented.
Joe
The Philadelphia Mint: making coins since 1792. We make money by making money. Now in our 225th year thanks to no competition. 
0
Comments
Next thing you know they will start collecting that black water coming out of the ground in Texas. Geez!
New collectors, please educate yourself before spending money on coins; there are people who believe that using numismatic knowledge to rip the naïve is what this hobby is all about.
<< <i>
1. Who was the schmuck that decided to counterfeit the coins by replacing the gold with platinum?
>>
I believe at the time platinum was cheaper than gold...Mike
Worry is the interest you pay on a debt you may not owe.
"Paper money eventually returns to its intrinsic value---zero."----Voltaire
"Everything you say should be true, but not everything true should be said."----Voltaire
<< <i>Another practice that I read about was people would take a gold coin and drill a very tiny hole into the edge. They would then take a stiff wire and work it in the hole. After many hours they would hollow out the coin. They would then fill the cavity with lead. Supposedly this practice was popular among the Chinese in America. I don't think I would have the patience to do this. >>
At that time (1860), partially hollowing the gold out of a $10 coin would probably yield the equivalent of a week's pay. That's how they had the patience.
New collectors, please educate yourself before spending money on coins; there are people who believe that using numismatic knowledge to rip the naïve is what this hobby is all about.
Here is the pattern half eagle from 1860 that Linderman is referring to in his correspondence. J271 image courtesy of uspatterns.com. Very cool item. I once owned a copper specimen J 272.
<< <i>1. Who was the schmuck that decided to counterfeit the coins by replacing the gold with platinum? >>
Someone that couldn't afford aluminum?
Keeper of the VAM Catalog • Professional Coin Imaging • Prime Number Set • World Coins in Early America • British Trade Dollars • Variety Attribution
<< <i>1. Who was the schmuck that decided to counterfeit the coins by replacing the gold with platinum? >>
Around the time that leter was written Platinum was selling around one dollar an ounce. Gold was close to $20.