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BANK NOTE MANUFACTURE. 



BANK NOTE MANUFACTURE. 



663 



are combined in a bank note, is so planned as to render forgery difficult. 

 The numbering is a remarkable process, as now performed. In 1809, 

 the Bank of England adopted a numbering press invented by Mr. 

 Bramah, by which the expense and uncertainty of finishing annually a 

 large number of bank notes with a pen were materially diminished, and 

 forgery rendered more difficult. The machine was, however, so far 

 incomplete that it produced only units, the tens and hundreds requiring 

 to be brought forward by hand. In 1813 a machine invented by 

 Mr. John Oldham, and used at the Bank of Ireland, had the additional 

 power of effecting numerical progression, from 1 to 100,000, by its 

 own operation ; one of these machines was subsequently attached to 

 each press for printing the body of the notes, in order to register and 

 check the number of notes passing through the press. 



In 1819 Mr. Bryan Donkin invented a counting machine, applicable 

 to the numbering of notes. Like most others of the kind, its action 

 depended on the relative motions of a series of ratchet wheels with 

 projecting rims, having notches cut in them ; so that when the first 

 wheel counted units, the second wheel indicated tens, and so on pro- 

 gressively. When Mr. Thomas Oldham succeeded his father, Mr. John 

 Oldham, as engineer to the Bank of England, he endeavoured to improve 

 on the instruments previously constructed, and devised the following 

 form of apparatus : Four wheels each divided by ten notches, leaving 

 a facet between each pair, engraved with consecutive numbers from 

 1 to 0, are placed upon a shaft; a portion of their breadth being 

 turned down about one-half of their depth, having a boss or collar 

 between every two. Upon theae bosses, and filling up the spaces, rest 

 latches; and over each wheel is a pall, the width of the first being 

 equal to that of the unit wheel, and the breadth of the others equalling 

 that of the wheel and latch. The palls are driven by a crank ; by 

 each revolution of which the first wheel is moved through a space 

 equal to one-tenth of its entire circumference, bringing regularly 

 forward the numbers from 1 to 0. When the figure is reached, the 

 latch of the second wheel is depressed, and the wheel moves forward one 

 division, marking the tens. The same process is repeated with regard 

 to the other wheels ; and thus any amount of numbers can be registered, 

 by simply increasing the number of wheels in proportion. Machines 

 of this kind were extensively adopted in the Bank of England ; with, 

 of course, an inking apparatus to apply to the types. 



A patent was taken out in 1844 for a mode of printing bank notes, 

 intended to obviate the liability to forgery. The surface is covered 

 with two designs, one geometrically regular, and the other very 

 irregular ; the two designs are engraved on different plates, and are 

 printed with different inks, the one with visible and the other with 

 invisible ink. Both of the inks are delible or removeable by chemical 

 means ; and the usual engraving of a bank note is printed on paper 

 which has already undergone this preparatory or ornamental printing. 

 The rationale of the suggestion is this : that whatever means a forger 

 might take to alter by chemical agency the letters or figures, or to 

 transfer them by lithographic or anastatic processes, the state of the 

 paper would betray him ; for he would remove some part* of the design 

 in the one case, and fail to transfer it in the other. The method was 

 patented on individual responsibility, and has not been adopted by the 

 Bank of England. 



Notwithstanding all the ingenuity displayed, and novelties in- 

 troduced, the commercial world has never felt satisfied as to the 

 security of bank notes from forgery. Public bodies have more than 

 once taken up this subject. In 1819 the Society of Arts appointed a 

 committee to inquire into the best modes of engraving and printing 

 bank notes ; and many persons are now of opinion that if the report of 

 that committee had been acted on, the forgeries during the last forty 

 years would have been lees numerous than they have been. The 

 enquiries were suggested, not merely by the commercial loss conse- 

 quent on forgeries, but by a repugnance on the part of the public to 

 the terrible punishment inflicted for this crime. Between the years 

 1797 and 1817, there were 870 prosecutions for forgery of bank notes, 

 followed by the execution of more than 300 persons. In six years, 

 1812 to 1818, more than a hundred thousand forged notes were stopped 

 at the Bank ; sometimes they poured in at the rate of a hundred a day. 

 Not only did the Society of Arts take up the subject, but a Govern- 

 ment Committee was also appointed, to which no fewer than ISO 

 projects (mostly relating to intricate designs of note-engraving) were 

 Hubmitted. It is remarkable, however, how little practical benefit 

 resulted from all these enquiries ; the suggested inventions were 

 neglected, and almost went out of recollection. Down to the year 

 1855, all the bank nutcs were produced by various combinations of the 

 inventions of Perkins and Heath, Bramah, Oldham, and Donkin, 

 already adverted to. The paper was made at one particular paper-mill 

 in Hampshire, by a peculiar and special operation. [PAI-KH MANCFAC- 

 TCKE.] The engraving was effected by the transfer method above 

 described, sometimes called lidenx/mphlf : the engraving being trans- 

 ferred and re-transferred, from dies to rollers, and from rollers to plates, 

 having various degrees of hardness. The engraving of two notes was 

 upon one plate. The sheets of paper (each for two notes) were damped 

 for printing, by the operation of an ingenious exhausting vessel, which 

 forced moisture into them at the rate of 30,000 sheets per minute. 

 In the printing room of the Bank of England, after the plates had been 

 heated over steam-boxes, they were printed with steam power. The 

 printing was of the " copper-plate " kind, unlike surface or " letter- 



press " printing ; that is, the ink went into the cavities of the device 

 on the plate, and not upon the surfaces. By a very delicate piece of 

 mechanism, the printing presses recorded the amount of their own 

 work on a registering dial ; so that any surreptitious printing was 

 impossible. The working power was generally such as to print about 

 30,000 bank notes per day. The ink, like everything else in the 

 operation, was specially prepared ; it was made from the charred husks 

 of Rhenish grapes, combined with boiled and burnt linseed oil ; and it 

 was the blackest and most indelible of all inks. The prevention and 

 detection of forgery were attempted by the truly remarkable mode 

 invented by the Oldhams for printing something or other on every 

 note different from every other note. These varying elements were 

 dates, numbers, and denominations. There might be many notes 

 of the same date, many bearing the same number, many of the same 

 denomination ; but never any two notes that agreed in all these three 

 particulars. These results were produced, partly by the mechanism 

 of the register-printing machines, and partly by the use of certain 

 secret numbers and symbols, known only to the Bank authorities. 



Such, we have said, was the mode of operation down to the year 

 1855; and such in many of its features is the plan still adopted; but 

 important changes have been made in other particulars. In 1851, 

 Mr. Sniee, surgeon to the Bank of England, suggested to the directors 

 that the time had arrived for the adoption of surface printing instrad 

 of jtlute printing, in the preparation of the notes, as admitting of greater 

 rapidity , and more complete identity of appearance. Although objecting 

 to any additional change in the form or device of the note, the directors 

 consented to the prosecution of a series of elaborate experiments. In 

 these experiments Mr. Smee was assisted by Mr. Hensman, engineer 

 to the Bank, and by Mr. Coe, superintendent of the note-printing 

 machines. Engravers, press-makers, paper-makers, and ink-makers, all 

 contributed their opinions or inventions towards the preparation of 

 bank notes by surface-printing. At length, in 1854, all the difficulties 

 were surmounted : on the 1st of January, 1855, the first bank note 

 appeared under the new system. The bank note differs very little from 

 its predecessor ; the Britannia is, perhaps, somewhat more artistic ; but 

 the letters, figures, and flourishes are scarcely altered. Indeed, it was 

 a fixed policy on the part of the directors to render any change in the 

 appearauce of their bank notes as little perceptible as possible. The 

 great novelty was in the preparation of the plate for surface-printing. 

 Until the year 1837, the device was engraved on the plate itself from 

 which the impressions were to be printed; from 1837 to 1S54, the 

 engraving was managed on the siderographic process ; but on the new 

 system, introduced in 1855, the design for the note is made up and 

 engraved on several small pieces of copper, brass, and steel, according 

 to the quality and minuteness of the engraving ; the lines of the device 

 being raised instead of sunken. From the model thus made a metallic 

 mould is obtained, by electro-deposition. Mr. Smee's platinised silver 

 voltaic batteries are employed as the source of power. These batteries 

 had already been advantageously used in multiplying the copper-plates 

 for the Ordnance maps. The model is left in the precipitatiug-trough 

 containing sulphate of copper solution until a layer of copper has been 

 deposited upon it thick enough to bear handling ; the device of course 

 appears on this film in intaglio, not in relief, and serves as the mould 

 from which copies of the original model are to be made. Being sepa- 

 rated from the original model, and again immersed in the solution, 

 this mould receives a deposit, which, when thick enough, is separated 

 from the mould giving the device. It is this, in relief instead of 

 intaglio, when backed up and strengthened by solder or other metal, 

 which forms the plate from which Bank of England notes are printed. 

 There are about seventy or eighty kinds of Bank of England notes, 

 differing either in their denominations (51., 101., &c.), or in the town 

 where they are issued (London, Manchester, Birmingham, &c.) ; each 

 of these lias required its own original model ; but any one model 

 would suffice for an almost endless number of notes, seeing that one 

 model will yield an indefinite number of moulds, and one mould an 

 indefinite number of plates; by the electro-metallurgic process, nearly 

 ten million bank notes are printed annually without any necessary 

 renewal of the original models. The paper, supplied by the same 

 establishment in Hampshire which has furnished bank note paper for 

 a long series of years, is manufactured in a manner which exhibits 

 almost as many novelties as the preparation of the plates. Until the 

 year 1855, the ' water-mark ' (one of the safeguards against forgery) 

 was produced by forming a device with fine wire in the mould or frame 

 employed in making the paper. Now, however, the device for the 

 water-mark is engraved on steel-faced dies, and transferred by stamping 

 to brass plates ; by a delicate process, these brass plates are adjusted 

 to or within the paper-making mould. There is a gradation of light 

 and shade in the present water-mark, very difficult to imitate. The 

 sheets of paper, before they leave the Hampshire mill, undergo a pro- 

 cess of dry-glazing by rolling. It has been necessary to make a change 

 in the ink as well as in the paper, in adapting the arrangements for 

 surface-printing ; the bank note ink, instead of being prepared from_ 

 the husks of Rhenish grapes, is made by a combination of a peculiar 

 varnish with the soot resulting from burning coal-tar naphtha in closed 

 chambers. The printing presses, and the mode of printing, differ 

 materially under the present surface-printing system, a3 compared 

 with the old plate-printing ; the mechanism comprises many beautiful 

 novelties. 



