The E-Sylum:  Volume 8, Number 27, July 3, 2005, Article 24

COUNTERFEIT 50-CENT "POSTAL CURRENCY"

In another book I recently discovered an interesting story of
an 1865 seizure of fifty thousand dollars in spurious postal
currency, also documented in The New York Times of
November 20, 1865. From "Knots Untied: Ways and
By-Ways in the Hidden Life of American Detectives" by
George S. McWatters, 1873:

"One exceedingly skillful engraver of bogus postal currency
has been especially marked as the most dangerous operator,
inasmuch as his execution was so perfect as frequently to
deceive even the Government officials.... The man in
question is an English engraver, by the name of Charles J.
Roberts."

"The counterfeit pieces which he made... were copies of
the latest issue of fifty cent postal currency."

Given the date of the incident I presume that by "postal
currency" is meant what we now refer to as fractional
currency. Today we properly refer only to the first issue
of fractional notes as postal currency.

  Wayne Homren, Editor

	coinbooks.org Web

The Numismatic Bibliomania Society is a non-profit organization 
promoting numismatic literature. See our web site at coinbooks.org.

To submit items for publication in The E-Sylum, write to the Editor 
at this address: whomren@coinlibrary.com

To subscribe go to: https://my.binhost.com/lists/listinfo/esylum