Counterfeiting on an Industrial Scale

GAZETTE OF THE UNITED STATES. New-York, Saturday, July 6, 1793. Volume IV, No. 115. Tabloid [42.5 by 25.5 cm]. 4 pages. Removed from previous binding; some marginalia; very good. Page 3 includes a lengthy article on counterfeiting operations in Birmingham, many of which are technologically savvy and capable of producing coins by the thousand. Of one outfit, the anonymous author writes: “The other and more pure dollars, the artists are more close and secret about, as being a better thing. These however come to Birmingham in real Spanish or Mexican dollars, bought at the bank and other places, sent down by land carriages, about 10,000 at a time, in a cask, and they are melted and recoined, copying as exactly the old impressions, of which there are three or four sorts, but mostly the lank visage of his most Catholic Majesty, nine pence of silver being taken from each of the new coinage, and these new ones want but little alloy to bring them to a proper thickness; two one-half, or three pence on each piece is ample pay to the artist here for dies, recoining, sending back to London, and all other expences, so that the public upon whom they are put, lose nine pence in every four and six pence, and the emitter has a clear benefit of six pence on each. Upon close investigation, no doubt remains upon my mind, but they are meant for the West-Indies or for the United States. Six tons of them and of other silver, have been so melted down since the beginning of August last.”