Show ti COUNTERFEIT COM How DIes ArcProcured Souie Novelties Novel-ties InHlie Way of Going I l A silverhalfdollar was yesterday shown to J P Tandy the coin expert of the SubTreasury with the question Is it a counterfeit It was larger than the halfdollar coins in circulation thinner felt much lighter and had a peculiar ring unlike that of a genuine coin Mr Tandy however pronounced it to be the coinage of the Uuited States Mint HI have one very much like it he I said and producing a little box filled with various counterfeit gold and silver coins he picked out a hafdollar resembling re-sembling that shown him When I got hold of this he continued I was puzzled to account for its peculiarities pecu-liarities We finaly sent it to the Mint and asked them tolook at it The Superintendent Su-perintendent wrote back that it was a genuine coin but that it had been in the hands of counterfeiters They had placed a piece of lead over this coin and hammered it until a perfect per-fect impression was made in the softer metal In this process the halfdollar was spread out to its present size and was made correspondingly thinner as yousee As to the oddness of its ring perhaps the hammering changed the molecular construction of the medal causing it to vibrate differently when rung The difference in the size and thickness also would change its sound The little box from which Mr Tandy produced his halfdollar contains bad coins detected at the SubTreasury from time to time There are counterfeits of various characters and of various pieces from a silver quarter to a gold double eagle The Dad peices best calculated to deceive are those in which a genuine coin has been altered or tampered with leaving the impression of the die intact Among them is a Mexican silver dollar the face of which was in some way sliced off and the body of the coin all dug out until nothin but a shell remained Into this a little cake of lead was nicely fitted to give it weight and the thin disk of silver being replaced like the lid on a blackin box the coin was ready for circulation The result of all this work was only the value of the silver extracted ex-tracted from the coinh and unless the operator had fine machinery and drove a trade in the wholesale line ib is difficult to see how he made a laborers wages I There are in the collection some I American silver dollars the edges of which indicate that a deep furrow has I been plowed out in a lathe the gutter thus made being then filled up with white metal There are a number of outandout counterfeit quarters and halfdollars most of them poor in ap pearance and very light in weight Some gold dollar 4 peices are better made and would be taken bj most persons per-sons without hesitation The gem of the collection however is a twentydol lar gold piece which it is difficult to believe is not all it should be This Mr Tandy explains has been treated in the same manner as the Mexican dollar already al-ready described The impression on both sides is genuine but the gold has been scooped and its place filled with a base metal This coin came over in a shipment of double eagles from London A number like it were caught up at one tine or another On cutting them up it was found that the shell contained f 6 worth of gold The operators there fore rot 14 out of every coin so treated which they succeeded in passingNew t York Telegram |