COPPER, STEEL, AND BANK-NOTE ENGRAVING. 607 



the roll. Even the finest and faintest scratch of a diamond 

 point can be taken up this way and retransferred to another 

 piece of steel and printed to the paper, so little is lost in the 

 operation. 



The roll is now put through the same process of hardening 

 previously used on the die, and we are then prepared to make a 

 great many duplicates of the original. One hundred or more fac- 

 similes of the die can be made in less time than it took to pro- 

 duce the original. For instance, it takes a picture engraver about 

 six weeks to engrave a portrait like that of Martha Washington 

 on the left of the one-dollar United States note, and it can be re- 

 produced in fifteen minutes by means of the transfer press and a 

 roll taken from the original die. 



Imagine, if you can, the work it would be to engrave by hand 

 the two hundred postage stamps that are usually put on the plate 

 from which they are printed, or the forty or fifty coupons of a 

 bond. An endless job, you say, and yet that is just what would 

 have to be done if it were not for the transfer press. And not 

 only is it possible to thus readily multiply facsimiles of the origi- 

 nal, but the reproductions are exact in every respect and detail, 

 excepting the almost imperceptible loss in the process, which is 

 natural and unavoidable. 



Transferers work from a paper model made with prints from 

 the original dies, which are very carefully put together in such a 

 way as will give a very good idea of the efi:ect of the finished 

 work. These models are also submitted to and accepted by the 

 party for whom the work is to be done. 



After the plate is transferred it shows hollows around the 

 work, made by the pressure of the roll, which must be brought 

 back to a flat surface again ; otherwise a clean proof could not be 

 taken. These hollows are flattened by first carefully marking 

 the outline of the work on the back of the plate, by means of 

 " calipers " made for the purpose, then laying the face of the plate 

 on a polished hardened-steel anvil and hammering around the 

 outline. All scratches, guide lines, and marks that have been 

 used by the transferer are then removed by burnishing the sur- 

 face, and the plate is ready for the engraver's hands, for there is 

 always some flourishing and finishing to be done before the plate 

 is ready for the printing press. 



Plate printing is the opposite of block or woodcut printing in 

 this respect : The line that is to print the color is cut into and 

 below the surface in plate work, and may be so fine that it can 

 not be seen without the aid of a strong magnifier, and yet print 

 perfectly clear and unbroken, while in block the line is left stand- 

 ing and must have some appreciable thickness. For this reason 

 wood engraving can never be as delicate as plate, for it could not 



