I've been looking at fractional currency lately and have noticed something about the 1874 series 25-cent notes in particular. On the reverse, left side where there is mostly nothing printed, these ALL seem to show a LOT of blue threads/fibers in the paper. On the right where it is printed and on the face, not so much. Is this just an illusion because of the lack of printing, or was there actually some technical reason/issue that made those fibers show up there? Rob
Very common on some notes, Stanton 50 cent for instance. Here's mine: Just another anti counterfeiting measure... from the fourth and fifth series, some have it more than others.
So they were intentionally concentrated more on one side of the paper than the other? Kinda cool looking, actually. Make it look like half the note is in the shade. Rob
Mec..that is my favorite Fractional of the 4th Issue..Stanton was a real Character to say the least. When I first starting collecting Fractionals I was really impressed with the technology of that time..here is how the "Blue" came about and the changes that occurred to print these notes; "The Forth Issue is very interesting in that paper experiments were continued in an attempt to prevent counterfeiting. An attempt was made to use a watermark as a deterrent was unsuccessful and was discontinued because the water mark made the paper weak and resulted in a short circulation life of the note. Another measure to inhibit counterfeiting was the use of a strip of blue fibers in the paper. The localized area was obtained by imbedding a strip of blue dyed fibers between the two layers of paper. The strip was ~ 3" wide and was centered on the vertical centerline of each sheet. The layout of the sheet of notes was changed to two vertical columns of six notes with the right hand column inverted with respect to the left hand column. In this fashion/layout, the center of the two columns was the meeting place of the right hand side of each single note in a row. The printing process then was called "tete-beche" and results in vertical pairs of strips so that the right end of the face of each note was in the localized fibers. Depending on the amount of fading of the blue dye. the notes have different degrees of darkness of the blue color in the fiber area. On some of the note a waterglass compound of (Sodium Silicate) was applied after printing to increase wearability through waterproofing or "sizing" of the notes to increase the life expectancy. These measures were discontinued before the end of the Issue and did not stop the ability of counterfeiters to produce passable notes, nor did it increase the life expectancy of the notes!"
Very cool info! I have an 1874 Fifth Issue 25 cent note on the way and will post it when it arrives. Been buying old notes to have a representative sample. Rob
