These shillings do not cost the makers above one halfpenny each: they are sold very low to the Smashers or Utterers, who pass them where they can, at the full nominal value; and when the silver wears off, which is very soon the case, they are sold to the Jews as bad shillings, who generally resell them at a small profit to customers, by whom they are recoloured, and thus soon brought again into circulation. The profit is immense, owing to the trifling value of the materials; but the circulation, on account of the danger of discovery, it is to be hoped is not yet very extensive. It is, however, to be remarked, that it is a species of coinage not of a long standing.
The Fourth Class of counterfeit silver-money is known by the name of Castings or Cast Goods. This species of work requires great skill and ingenuity, and is therefore confined to few hands; for none but excellent artists can attempt it, with any prospect of great success.
The process is to melt blanched copper, and to cast it in moulds, having the impression, and being of the size of a crown, a half-crown, a shilling, or a sixpence, as the case may be; after being removed from the moulds, the money thus formed is cleaned off, and afterwards neatly silvered over by an operation similar to that which takes place in the manufacture of buttons.
The counterfeit money made in imitation of shillings by this process, is generally cast so as to have a crooked appearance; and the deception is so admirable, that although intrinsically not worth one halfpenny, by exhibiting the appearance of a thick crooked shilling, they enter into circulation without suspicion, and are seldom refused while the surface exhibits no part of the copper; and even after this the itinerant Jews will purchase them at threepence each though six times their intrinsic value, well knowing that they can again be recoloured at the expence of half a farthing, so as to pass without difficulty for their nominal value of twelve pence.—A vast number of the sixpences now in circulation is of this species of coinage.
The profit in every view, whether to the original maker, or to the subsequent purchasers (after having lost their colour,) is immense.
In fabricating Cast Money, the workmen are always more secure than where presses and dies are used; because upon the least alarm, and before any officer of justice can have admission, the counterfeits are thrown into the crucible; the moulds are destroyed; and nothing is to be found that can convict, or even criminate the offender: on this account the present makers of cast money have reigned long, and were they careful and frugal, they might have become extremely rich; but prudence rarely falls to the lot of men who live by acts of criminality.
The Fifth and last Species of base coin made in imitation of silver-money of the realm is called Figs or Fig Things. It is a very inferior sort of counterfeit money, of which composition, however, a great part of the sixpences now in circulation are made. The proportion of silver is not, generally speaking, of the value of one farthing in half a crown; although there are certainly some exceptions, as counterfeit sixpences have been lately discovered, some with a mixture, and some wholly silver; but even these did not yield the makers less than from 50 to 80 per cent. while the profit on the former is not less than from five hundred to one thousand per cent. and sometimes more.
It is impossible to estimate the amount of this base money which has entered into the circulation of the Country during the last twenty years; but it must be very great, since one of the principal Coiners of stamped money, who some time since left off business, and made some important discoveries, acknowledged to the Author, that he had coined to the extent of two hundred thousand pounds sterling in counterfeit half-crowns, and other base silver money, in a period of seven years. This is the less surprising, as two persons can stamp and finish to the amount of from 200l. to 300l. a week.[44]
Of the Copper Money made in imitation of the current coin of the realm, there are many different sorts sold at various prices, according to the size and weight; but in general they may be divided into two kinds, namely, the stamped and the plain halfpence, of both which kind immense quantities have been made in London; and also in Birmingham, Wedgbury, Bilston, and Wolverhampton, &c.[45]
The plain halfpence are generally made at Birmingham; and from their thickness, afford a wonderful deception. They are sold, however, by the coiners to the large dealers at about a farthing each, or 100 per cent. profit in the tale or aggregate number. These dealers are not the utterers; but sell them again by retail in pieces, or five-shilling papers, at the rate of from 28s. to 31s. for a guinea; not only to the Smashers, but also to persons in different trades, as well in the Metropolis as in the Country Towns, who pass them in the course of their business at the full import value.