TESTS FOR BAD MONEY.

Northern Advocate, 26 August 1924, Page 8

TESTS FOR BAD MONEY.

AN EXPERT'S TIPS

I am constantly asked how to recognise bad money, writes a bank cashier in the "Daily News." There is far more about than the average man thinks. One catering firm at a recent agricultural show received nearly £100 in bad money of various kinds. The fact that the modern nickel coins discolour so readily give the coiner greater scope. He knows that shopkeepers arc so busy that they generally pass a "dud" without a second glance, and even should their suspicions be aroused he relies upon their inability to determine whether it be a counterfeit or a genuine one that has become tarnished. Once it is paid into a bank, however, it is sure to be detected, and is immediately broken or bent so that it cannot be used again.

How does a bank cashier manage to "spot" them? i" the first place he has, undoubtedly, become possessed of a kind of instinct for detecting the spurious, due to long familiarity with the genuine article. There is a peculiar "sheen" 'on u bad coin which, to an observant eye, makes it contrast strikingly with other coins around it. Even by touch it is quite possible to distinguished a bad coin from a good one: there is a "silkier feci about it. Whenever a bank cashier ha;J his suspicions aroused he will always closely scrutinise the detail on the coin. The line: dots run mug round the circumference never come out distinctly in one that has been cast from a mould. He looks narrowly at the strings of the ha-;- c-n the reverse of the half-crown (this is the favourite coin with the coiner) because they

never appear -sharp irn, l distinct in a "dud." In a bad. shilling the dots on the top of the crown on which the lion is standing and the small crown on the lion's heal ::rv :-.! w:<y.s blurred and indistinct. It is practically useies-; nowadays to test a coin by ringing it on a counter. Generally speaking, base coins have quite as clear a ring ?i:- good ones. Many of those issued by the Mint gav-> forth no ring at all owing to a slight crack occasioned in the process of stamping. There are two infallible tests by which anyone .may determine whether a coin is genuine or not. A base coin is always very much lighter in weight than a similar one' issued by the Mint. And, if it be inserted in a. small vice or copying press, it is quite easily broken.