Free Republic
Browse · Search
General/Chat
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

Researchers decipher the secrets of Benjamin Franklin's paper money
Notre Dame News ^ | July 17, 2023 | Brett Beasley

Posted on 07/23/2023 7:42:29 AM PDT by SunkenCiv

During his career, Franklin printed nearly 2,500,000 money notes for the American Colonies...

However, one major problem stood in the way of efforts to print paper money: counterfeiting. When Franklin opened his printing house in 1728, paper money was a relatively new concept. Unlike gold and silver, paper money's lack of intrinsic value meant it was constantly at risk of depreciating. There were no standardized bills in the Colonial period, leaving an opportunity for counterfeiters to pass off fake bills as real ones. In response, Franklin worked to embed a suite of security features that made his bills distinctive...

One of the most distinctive features they found was in Franklin's pigments. Manukyan and his team determined the chemical elements used for each item in Notre Dame's collection of Colonial notes. The counterfeits, they found, have distinctive high quantities of calcium and phosphorus, but these elements are found only in traces in the genuine bills.

Their analyses revealed that although Franklin used (and sold) "lamp black," a pigment created by burning vegetable oils, for most printing, Franklin's printed currency used a special black dye made from graphite found in rock. This pigment is also different from the "bone black" made from burned bone, which was favored both by counterfeiters and by those outside Franklin's network of printing houses.

Another of Franklin's innovations was in the paper itself. The invention of including tiny fibers in paper pulp — visible as pigmented squiggles within paper money — has often been credited to paper manufacturer Zenas Marshall Crane, who introduced this practice in 1844. But Manukyan and his team found evidence that Franklin was including colored silks in his paper much earlier.

(Excerpt) Read more at news.nd.edu ...


TOPICS: History; Science; Travel
KEYWORDS: benjaminfranklin; coins; colonies; epigraphyandlanguage; godsgravesglyphs; money
Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-2021-4041-51 next last
To: Flatus I. Maximus

If Franklin was alive today..DS would probably set out to destroy him. The FBI would raid his home. And the media would make crap up about him.
Probably all the original founders would be considered terrorists and a threat to our pretend democracy.


21 posted on 07/23/2023 9:03:18 AM PDT by Leep (What skill or service did the biden family have that netted them tens of millions of dollars?)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 17 | View Replies]

To: HartleyMBaldwin

I always carry a mass spectrometer in my pocket.


22 posted on 07/23/2023 9:11:13 AM PDT by citizen (Put all LBQTwhatever programming on a new subscription service: PERV-TV)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 6 | View Replies]

To: Flatus I. Maximus
"A pity Franklin never thought of a way to stop the government from making dollars nearly worthless by printing trillions of them."

In this instance, you can't blame any U.S. government for doing that.

Untold amounts of Continental currency were counterfeited on purpose by the British Empire with the sole purpose of causing hyperinflation as a part of economic warfare. It worked. The fake bills unleashed in the colonies/states did what they were intended to do.

People still remember the phrase "it ain't worth a Continental", even if they don't really know why they know it or where they heard it.

23 posted on 07/23/2023 9:12:30 AM PDT by ProgressingAmerica (The historians must be stopped. They're destroying everything.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 17 | View Replies]

To: citizen

Very wise.


24 posted on 07/23/2023 9:13:14 AM PDT by HartleyMBaldwin
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 22 | View Replies]

To: ProgressingAmerica

The states/colonies also issued their own currency by the bushel full. Rhode Island was particularly notorious for doing this.


25 posted on 07/23/2023 9:17:45 AM PDT by Reily (!!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 23 | View Replies]

To: SunkenCiv

At Intel, we found that crooks were remarking product indicating higher performance than was true. We added micro taggants to ink that were made from multiple layers of various depositions on silicon.


26 posted on 07/23/2023 9:35:09 AM PDT by sasquatch
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Reily
Issuing currency isn't in/of itself a bad thing, especially in the case like RH where it was their own "pound" that was RH-exclusive. But when it came to the Continental and was done "by the colonies"(such as NY colony) it was while still under foreign control and excessively conducted pointedly for malicious intent.

Benjamin Franklin himself noted:

"Paper money was in those times our universal currency. But it being the instrument with which we combated our enemies they resolved to deprive us of its use by depreciating it; and the most effectual means they could contrive was to counterfeit it. The artists they employed performed so well that immense quantities of these counterfeits which issued from the British government in New York were circulated among the inhabitants of all the states, before the fraud was detected. This operated considerably in depreciating the whole mass, first, by the vast additional quantity, and next by the uncertainty in distinguishing the true from the false; and the depreciation was a loss to all and the ruin of many. It is true our enemies gained a vast deal of our property by the operation but it did not go into the hands of our particular creditors, so their demands still subsisted, and we were still abused for not paying our debts!"

The whole mass was depreciated on purpose. The empire knew exactly what it was doing and intended the very outcome it got. This is a large reason why paper money was a huge controversy during the Constitutional Convention and eventually we had gold-backed money and actual metal money. Hyperinflation caused by a foreign combatant leaves a lasting mark in the minds for generations.

The Works of Benjamin Franklin, Vol. 12

27 posted on 07/23/2023 9:37:30 AM PDT by ProgressingAmerica (The historians must be stopped. They're destroying everything.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 25 | View Replies]

To: SunkenCiv; All
Thank you for referencing that article SunkenCiv.

As a side note to this thread, please consider the following.

"Researchers decipher the secrets of Benjamin Franklin's paper money"


Given that Benjamin Franklin was one of the delegates to the Constitutional Convention, he probably supported Article I, Section 10, Clause 1, which prohibits the states from using anything but gold and silver currency for legal tender.

"Article I, Section 10, Clause 1: No State shall enter into any Treaty, Alliance, or Confederation; grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal; coin Money; emit Bills of Credit; make any Thing but gold and silver Coin a Tender in Payment of Debts [emphases added]; pass any Bill of Attainder, ex post facto Law, or Law impairing the Obligation of Contracts, or grant any Title of Nobility."

Trump 47 will need to lead hopefully a bunch of new state and federal patriot lawmakers and executives to decide how to redress the nation's corrupt, unconstitutional (imo) banking system.

28 posted on 07/23/2023 9:41:50 AM PDT by Amendment10
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: SunkenCiv

Most, if not all, of my Confederate money looks like crap. The notes unquestionably genuine, but are not crisp and sharp like they should be. Until now, I didn’t know why. Good post.


29 posted on 07/23/2023 9:42:14 AM PDT by ComputerGuy (Heavily-medicated for your protection)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 12 | View Replies]

To: ProgressingAmerica
I remember reading about Rhode Island's fiscal irresponsibility in a book called “The Sovereign States”. It was about the US under the Revolutionary War Congressional government and the Confederation government. I may still have the book somewhere.
30 posted on 07/23/2023 9:44:02 AM PDT by Reily (!!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 27 | View Replies]

To: Bob434

I read Franklin’s autograph many years ago. It’s a great book.


31 posted on 07/23/2023 9:48:25 AM PDT by ProtectOurFreedom (We are proles, they are nobility.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 8 | View Replies]

To: HartleyMBaldwin

Lol. Yeah, simple as that!


32 posted on 07/23/2023 9:49:17 AM PDT by ProtectOurFreedom (We are proles, they are nobility.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 6 | View Replies]

To: HartleyMBaldwin

“All anyone would have had to do to spot a counterfeit was to run a bit of the ink through a mass spectrometer.”

Trouble is, this was before eBay was invented, where you could just buy them for $100.


33 posted on 07/23/2023 9:51:52 AM PDT by coloradan (They're not the mainstream media, they're the gaslight media. It's what they do. )
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 6 | View Replies]

To: Leep

Gum arabic? Guessing again.


34 posted on 07/23/2023 9:53:32 AM PDT by rightwingcrazy (;-,)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 13 | View Replies]

To: null and void; aragorn; EnigmaticAnomaly; kalee; Kale; AZ .44 MAG; Baynative; bgill; bitt; ...

p


35 posted on 07/23/2023 9:57:18 AM PDT by bitt (<img src=' 'width=40%>)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: coloradan

The colonials would have known better than to buy the $100 ones anyway. Those things are just Chicom junk, not like true 18th-century craftsmanship.


36 posted on 07/23/2023 10:01:21 AM PDT by HartleyMBaldwin
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 33 | View Replies]

To: SunkenCiv
“[CSA] counterfeiters often got caught because their bills were better.”

Never heard that before…I love historical anecdotes like that.

I had no idea Franklin’s print shop produced 2.5 million cash bills and that whole cash bill idea was a new invention at the time. Franklin was young, from late teens to early 40s When he ran his print shop in Philadelphia. Did he also own the “Franklin Mint”? (jk)

James Franklin (Benjamin’s brother) was trained as a printer in London and he printed with skill and ambition. In the summer of 1721, he established The New England Courant. Soon, James was forbidden by the Massachusetts Assembly to publish the paper because of attacks against the establishment.

”The more things change…”

37 posted on 07/23/2023 10:03:44 AM PDT by ProtectOurFreedom (We are proles, they are nobility.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 12 | View Replies]

To: Flatus I. Maximus

Just think of the “grievance studies” curricula that would be offered in prison.


38 posted on 07/23/2023 10:07:12 AM PDT by ProtectOurFreedom (We are proles, they are nobility.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 19 | View Replies]

To: HartleyMBaldwin

Yeah, that’s true. I do miss the fine knurled brass knobs and elaborate wooden inlay of my great-great-grandfather’s mass spec. To say nothing of fine antique FTIRs.


39 posted on 07/23/2023 10:07:34 AM PDT by coloradan (They're not the mainstream media, they're the gaslight media. It's what they do. )
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 36 | View Replies]

To: sasquatch

Crooks in and out of the Demagogic Party really suck.


40 posted on 07/23/2023 10:09:28 AM PDT by SunkenCiv (Politics do not make strange bedfellows, and the enemy of your enemy may still be your enemy.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 26 | View Replies]


Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-2021-4041-51 next last

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
General/Chat
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson