All of the Facts

All of the above facts I learned from my guide and driver of the team which conveyed me to this camp early in July, 1893.

About a year after this mine recommenced operations, the Treasury Department at Washington became aware that a new and wholly unprecedented counterfeit one dollar silver coin was in large circulation, apparently all over the United States. It was not made of spurious metal, to the contrary, it was of pure silver, containing only the proportions of alloy used in like coins turned out by the mints. The coins were not molded, as all the counterfeit coins I have ever known have been made, but it was punched, pressed and milled, in other words, it was minted just as are the pieces coined at the mints.

The fact that this new counterfeit was silver, that it had, consequently, the proper weight and the proper “ring,” made it an imitation exceedingly difficult to detect; only by the closest inspection, and the most accurate analysis and comparisons were the experts of the Treasury Department finally able, positively, to declare that these pieces had not been made at any of the government mints, and were therefore, illegal and counterfeit. The points of difference between the genuine and the imitation coins having been once noted, it was possible to detect all of these fraudulent issues, since they were all lacking in the same particulars. These particulars consisted of certain shades of inferiority in the execution of the whole of the obverse and of the eagle of the reverse; a difference which, however, was not apparent upon casual observation, and could only be originally perceived by the aid of lenses in a studied comparison between the genuine and the counterfeit.

It was clear, therefore, to the Secret Service Bureau of the government that all of these illegal coins were made with the same die. Where that die was located and at work, whether within the United States or without, and who was operating it, these were the great questions which concerned, not along the Treasury Department, but the entire administration, and was committed to the Secret Service Bureau for its best work.

It was clear to us that the manufacturers of this coin had been incited to their enterprise by the wide margin that then existed between the commodity price of the silver contained in the coined dollar and the value of that dollar as legal tender. This margin was something over 40 cents, and if any large number of coins were being turned out daily those engaged in the unlawful enterprise were doubtless accumulating immense fortunes.