While we hardly give even a fleeting thought to it today, determining whether paper money is genuine—or something else—was a big deal with big financial implications in pre-Civil War America. At the time, a seemingly endless number of banks and other issuers were circulating thousands of paper money designs and denominations. Almost all of these notes faithfully promised to pay the bearer on demand, or at some future date, in either specie, current funds, or perhaps even merchandise.
Identifying Fakes
Even after verifying that the issuer was still in business, the perilous process of determining if a note was genuine confronted every money handler. A number of fraudulent types of notes might be presented. These include examples that were more or less faithful copies of authentic notes from legitimate issuers (counterfeits); notes issued by failed institutions that were physically altered so they appeared to be from active banks?; genuine low-denomination notes that were altered to appear higher; and those with spurious designs that the perpetrators dreamed up. In this case, counterfeiters used an easily modified common plate to make fake notes for multiple banks.
Counterfeits were often the toughest to detect because they would at least roughly match descriptions of genuine note designs in periodicals and newspapers. In environments like a mercantile store on a busy market day or a dimly lit room, proprietors didn’t have enough time to do a detailed analysis. Often, if merchants and other money handlers had doubts about a note, they might accept it but pass it along to someone else at the earliest opportunity. There were ways to shorten the process of identifying fakes, including looking for
key diagnostics.
Faces & Imprints
The two most common problem areas that counterfeiters struggled with were rendering human figures, especially faces, and the bank-note company imprint, which often appeared in very small letters along one of the margins.
George Washington resembles a zombie in this portrait. His poorly engraved eyes are downright scary and give the appearance of rolling back in his head. (Photo: Heritage Auctions)
The imprint of Durand, Perkins & Co. New-York is uneven and the letters are not all the same size. (Photo: Heritage Auctions)
Pictured above are two details that identify the Greenwich Bank of the City of New York note on which they appear as a counterfeit. Needless to say, these details should have been a sign to anyone being asked to accept this note that “it ain’t right.”
If there was one thing that every bank-note company would make sure was top notch, it was their imprint. No self-respecting firm would allow their imprint to look haphazard or sloppy. A poorly done imprint was another red flag that signaled a note’s true nature.
Counterfeiters even had difficulty producing a passable ABNCo monogram, which appeared on many notes starting in 1858. The monogram (shown below) was added to the repaired or refurbished plates of predecessor companies after the formation of the American Bank Note Company. New plates received a full American Bank Note Company imprint.
This is a side-by-side comparison of fraudulent (left) and genuine ABNCo monograms. On the counterfeit monogram, the B and C are too prominent and upright, with the A almost invisible. The top flourish on the B is missing. On the genuine example, the A is clear and all letters slant uniformly to the right. The B’s top flourish is present. (Photos: Heritage Auctions)
Crude Caricatures
It is difficult to discern whether earlier notes are genuine because the first two decades of the 19th century were not the epitome of the engraver’s art. The most common failing was horrible human likenesses.
Counterfeiters hated creating human faces and seemingly just couldn’t produce a recognizable portrait. Faces displayed very few features, and those that were shown were crudely engraved. Some examples I’ve seen are missing a nose and mouth—just eyes appear. Sometimes, eyes are rendered as simple black spheres.
Side-by-side comparisons of known counterfeit and genuine notes can be very telling. In the comparison below, the woman on a counterfeit $5 of the Ocean Bank of the City of New York is shown next to the same illustration on a genuine issue.
The woman on the counterfeit $5 of the Ocean Bank of the City of New York (left) has facial features that have been crudely engraved, and the lighthouse tower is represented by short vertical dashes. The young woman on the genuine proof note is more refined, and the lighthouse is more realistic with subtle details. (Photos: Heritage Auctions)
Good Enough
So, how were fakes able to circulate successfully? The old rule of counterfeiting was that the note did not have to be perfect, it just had to be good enough to pass muster in a brief inspection. Money handlers of the day had little current information and lacked simple tools, like a magnifying glass. In most cases, they did not have a genuine note on hand for comparison. The small details that we pick up on were simply too subtle for those who had to decide in a matter of seconds whether to accept or reject a note. Compounding the problem was the fact that hundreds and even thousands of designs were floating around. In retrospect, it is amazing that any of these counterfeits were detected at all.
A version of this article appears in the January 2024 issue of The Numismatist (money.org).