ROMANCE OF MONEY.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIII, Issue 19412, 21 August 1926, Page 2 (Supplement)

ROMANCE OF MONEY.

MILLIONS IN BANK NOTES. OUTWITTING THE FORGERS. HOW CAMERAS ABE BAFFLED, "There are roughly about five million pounds at your elbow —in pesos." A representative •of 1 The Sunday News looked .at, the neat piles of rainbow-col-oured paper standing on .the wooden shelf at his side. " Yes," continued his guide, " and in this room—it is our storethere is probably "enough money in paper to buy up the whole British Navy." The partitioned shelves, stretched the whole length of the room in Messrs. Bradbury, Wilkinson's factory, at Wimbledon. Here were heaps of Spanish notes, there Portuguese; farther off Bulgarian; on one shelf Dantzig notes, on another a few hundred thousand pounds in New Zealand one-pound notes, wrapped up in small* packets, a mere trifle beside the enormous wealth which stood heaped up discreetly in Spanish paper money.

The beautifully laid-out works at Wimbledon, which supplies so much of the contents of the worldV pay .envelopes; is one of England's unsuspected romances. In those sunlit, spacious workrooms, set among flowery grounds, is laid one of the centres of the war that is waged ceaselessly against that spiker of the wheels of commerce, the bank-note forger. Here the brains of engravers, designers, ink and water-mark manufacturers are coordinated to outw.t the of the most highly-skilled type of criminal on earth. The elaborate beauty of the best engraved bank note is not an accident, nor dbes it reflect the artistic whim of a bank directorate. It has its purpose in baffling the forger.

• Bank-note forging is - not - the highlyorganised, industry in -Britain, that it is on the Continent of Europe. In Bradbury, Wilkinson's they have a proper contempt for the British forger. Not an artist,, said one engraver. "Now, the Italians !" Cleverest Forgers In Italy. " But. it .is wonderful what crude imitations will deceive the public," said another man, taking his magnifying glass from his eye and looking up from the exquisite engraving of a Bulgarian village market, which he .was cutting, with lines of an incredible- fineness, and grace, on a highly-polished steel plate. H& seemed" to feel keenly the slight that was cast on the work of the genuine artist in forgery. The ' most skilful forgers live, in Italy and Sicily. Perhaps the brilliant Southern sunlight helps them in their delicate and nefarious work.; perhaps they inherit some of the skill of the old Italian painters in reproducing the finest shades 'of 'tint. At any rate, they give most trouble to banks, police; and "banknote .manufacturers., j Speaking about the .methods employed •in*' the" anti-forger war, Mr. H. Leslie Henriks, who is : manager of the factory, said, " The anti-photographic value of the notes is ,our strpngest safeguard.. Defeating t&8 Camera, 'The camera is our enemy, and we endeavour, to produce on each .note a scientific combination of colours 'to fog the camera. You know that, if you try to photograph a rainbow you get only a haze on your plate. That is what we do. •Each note is a rainbow of tints, each of which fades into the other gradually, so that one colour, overlaps another and produces graded intermediate shades. To produce., this effect, of -course, each note receives "several printings. " What of colour photography ? It is true' that by using screens which shut off now one hue and now another the .forger can produce an imitation of the note, which may deceive a careless person. But colour photography cannot- reproduce the gradual merging of one tint into another without showing signs of hazing, visible, to those who are on their guard.

"Another protecting factor is the water-mark, which, in the case of our notes, is what is called a 'panel' watermark. That is, it is small and placed on a part of ''.the note where it is easily visible and where people will learn to look for it. ■: 1 ' " On British Treasury notes the water--mark .is ' all over'—-it extends completely over the note, and is usually in simple line: - Our watermarks, which may foe portraits, give us a chance to display light and shade. The public remember what 1 they look like, and are not so easily deceived. ■ Protecting the Bankers. " A forged watemark is generally on the surface of the note, pressed on to the paper from a steel 'die. Subject the note to pressure and, the watermark will disappear; examine the paper carefully and the surface will show signs of being tampered with; ' ■ " It is impossible' to protect the publio from; forgers. What-we can-do is .to protect the banker and to make it so difficult and expensive a task for the forger to reproduce our notes that the game will not ;be' worth the candle for him. Already, he is driven to touch up his forged notes by hand, and that is a laborious process. - 1 The successful modern forger earns his money. A visit to a bank-note factory makes one wonder where he obtains the capital to furnish himself with the elaborbusiness C ° y machinery required in his