Compared with a dozen or so years ago, there is nothing like the counterfeiting going on in this country. Shortly after the war the country was practically flooded with it, but so perfect is the machinery of the secret service and so successful have its officers been in recent years in unearthing the big plants and their operators, and placing the latter behind the bars, that counterfeiting has almost ceased.
The receipts of subsidiary counterfeit coins at the subtreasury at New York have been in recent times inconsequential. Some time ago an Italian silversmith, who was an expert coin counterfeiter, was captured, and the destruction of his plant and his subsequent conviction had a wholesome effect upon his fellow countrymen, some of whom have come over to the United States for the express purpose of counterfeiting its silver coins. Only five counterfeit issues of notes made their appearance during the year in question, and of these three were new and two were reissues of old counterfeits.
This shows how well the counterfeit situation, as it were, is kept in check and under control by the government. By some it is supposed that most of our counterfeiters come from abroad, but this is not strictly accurate, though many of those who attempt to imitate our silver dollar and the subsidiary coin issues hail from Italy and Russia.
In order to set up a first-class counterfeit shop for the turning out of good paper counterfeits, there are so many indispensable requisites on the part of the spurious money-makers that they get discouraged or caught in most instances almost at the very outset of their would-be easy money-making careers. All of the good engravers who are capable of turning out good plates are more or less under the constant supervision of the secret service officers, while the paper supply, or its possible supply, is equally well watched.
Because gold and silver coins pass current out on the Pacific coast, where notes do not yet circulate freely as in the east, California has more counterfeiting cases than any other state in the Union, with Pennsylvania, with its large foreign population in the mining regions, a close second.
A moderately deceptive $5 silver certificate was made in Italy, imported into this country by various gangs of Italians and passed quite extensively in the eastern states, but the secret service officers quickly got on to the source of issue, and made many arrests and secured convictions. So closely did they hit the trail of a fairly good counterfeit note issued in the west that they got the maker and passer arrested and convicted and the plates captured so quickly that it must have caused him acute pain. It was the same with a $10 note of deceptive workmanship which appeared in New York. Only three of these notes were circulated.
Of course there are plenty of counterfeit notes and coins in circulation—if there were not the secret-service officers would have an easy time of it—but the output has largely decreased as compared with former years, and, unless all signs fail, it is likely to go still lower, as the secret service officers become each year more expert in detecting this class of crime and putting the criminals away where they will serve the state the best. Gold certificates issued below the denomination of $20, are numbered the same as treasury notes and are check-lettered in their order upon each sheet.
The only denominations of the gold certificates which have been counterfeited are the issues for $20 and $100, respectively, as the gold certificates present a pretty tough counterfeiting proposition, though most of the denominations of the various issues of the silver certificates have been more or less extensively counterfeited, perhaps the issues for $5 and $10, respectively, being the most favored at the counterfeiter's hands, by reason of the ready circulation of these two issues.
The main deterrents to counterfeiting nowadays are, first, lack of good engravers who will take the risk; second, the difficulty in the making and the assembling of first-class plates, and third, the difficulty in the securing of suitable paper. As to the last, the fiber paper now in use with the two silk threads running through the note lengthwise presents a hard proposition for imitation, and lastly, and an important provision, is the fact the public is now pretty well educated on the question of counterfeits, and know how a spurious bill both looks and feels. As for the bank tellers, they scent counterfeits by instinct. Things have changed for the counterfeiter, too, and they are not for the best from his point of view.
The secret service of the United States is without a question the best in the world.