Rensselaer Union, Volume 9, Number 30, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 12 April 1877 — How to Detect Bogus Coins. [ARTICLE]

How to Detect Bogus Coins.

A good deal of bogus silver coin is said to be in circulation. A Sub-Treasury expert says the bogus pieces of which the public should be particularly cautious are the half-dollars, composed of antimony, lead and tin. It should be remembered that these are light. A genuine half-dol-lar weighs 192.0 grains; the antimony and lead and tin humbugs weigh only 142 grains. Type-metal is also perverted from its honest, original purpose by the coiners. It is electroplated first with copper and then with silver. It weighs 192.9, like the real half-dollar, but the color is not good; the false pieces are thicker than the genuine, and the devices are feeble and faulty. Mr. Du Bois, Assayer of the Mint, says officially that there is some thing about genuine coin which puts it beyond suspicion, especially when the new white surface has given place to the inimitable and permanent “ nine-tenths tint.” and generally it speaks well for itself as to color and sonority. There is a liquid test of silver which can be put dp by any druggist. It consists of twentyfour grains of nitrate of silver, fifteen grains of nitric acid and one ounce of water. This, if the coin be bad, blackens it at once. Mr. Du Bois also gives directions for testing coin by weight—the same as published by ns some few months since —namely, poise a thin strip of wood eight or ten inches long; place a good piece at one end and the suspected one at the other; have a weight of threo grains at hand; if the difference is more than that “decline to receive it.”—if. Y. Graphic. —The newest style of fancy shirts for gentlemen are made of. white linen, double-breasted, ornamented with a fine line of red, blue, or brown, and with collars trimmed to match.