On Mon, 07 Sep 2009 16:27:40 -0400, Mike Coslo wrote:

What is old is new again - the alchemists were right!

Hi Mike,

Of late, I have been reading Herman Melville's "The Confidence Man." I
won't go into the plot (it strained the conventions of the day -
1850s) but mention one vignette where a kid was hustling two gentlemen
on a river boat on the Mississippi. When the kid struck a deal, he
sweetened it with a pamphlet on how to recognize counterfeit paper
money.

It seems that pamphlets like this wete very necessary back when any
bank could print their own bills (something like the great hornswaggle
of Wall Street). The banks then had to print pamphlets on how to
recognize the exquisite detail work of engraving on their bills so you
would recognize the 'real stuff.'

What is interesting is that the counterfeiters wrote their own
pamphlets too, describing the exquisite details in their engraving....

73's
Richard Clark, KB7QHC