COPPER, STEEL, AND BANK-NOTE ENGRAVING. 605 



to be counterfeited. This is so also because a line cut with a 

 graver is smooth, sharp, and clean, whereas an etched or bitten 

 line is ragged and rough. 



Line engraving is the most expensive, for it takes much more 

 time to produce a picture by this process than by any other. 

 Some of the large plates by the late James 



Smillie, father of the James D. Smillie Jj^^^^^^lii'm 

 mentioned earlier in this paper, and who ,^|^^^^^ ' '^^^^B 

 was the best artist of his time in America, |^^^pi^'-- l^^B 

 cost as high as ten thousand dollars, and ^^^fe^,,^ ^^^^P 

 took the greater part of two years to com- ^^^^P^^fe. ^ 



Bank-note Engraving. For the sake y,,,_ ,._l,^.^ ENORAvmo. 

 of convenience we will divide bank-note 



engraving into two classes : 1. Lettering. 2. Picture and scroll 

 work. 



Lettering may be described under three heads large lettering, 

 such as bond titles ; small lettering, like that done on coupons, 

 cards, and tickets ; and script or writing. Some engravers can do 

 good work in all of these branches of lettering, but in large es- 

 tablishments each man is kept employed at that style in which 

 he excels. 



In bonds and stock certificates the titles and script are usu- 

 ally done on the plate from which they are to be printed, but 

 there is a lot of small work, common to jobs of that kind, which 

 is done on what are called " dies " or " bedpieces," and trans- 

 ferred from the rolls to the plates. This will be more fully de 

 scribed later. 



In large lettering a drawing of the outline of the letters is 

 made on paper to get the shapes, curves, and spacing correct. A 

 tracing of this outline is then made on gelatin, and, after filling 

 this with vermilion, a thin coating of wax is laid on the plate and 

 a transfer of the gelatin tracing put on the wax. Next the out- 

 line is carefully marked through the wax on to the plate; the 

 wax is taken off and the artist is ready to begin his cutting. 



Lettering on bank notes, if there is to be more than one note 

 on a plate, is engraved on " dies" or " bedpieces" and transferred 

 to the plate. This insures the exact duplication of the material 

 of each of the notes, and also makes it possible to reproduce and 

 retouch the work at any time. 



Picture and Scroll Work. Picture and scroll work is the 

 most expensive connected with the bank-note business, and is di- 

 vided into three classes, viz., scroll, portrait, and vignette engrav- 

 ing. It is a very unusual thing to find a man who is a first-class 

 artist in more than one of these branches, and there are none that 

 are even good in all three. This is one of the safeguards of the 



