Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 46.djvu/623

 to be counterfeited. This is so also because a line cut with a graver is smooth, sharp, and clean, whereas an etched or bitten line is ragged and rough.

Line engraving is the most expensive, for it takes much more time to produce a picture by this process than by any other. Some of the large plates by the late James Smillie, father of the James D. Smillie mentioned earlier in this paper, and who was the best artist of his time in America, cost as high as ten thousand dollars, and took the greater part of two years to complete.

—For the sake of convenience we will divide bank-note engraving into two classes: 1. Lettering. 2. Picture and scroll work.

Lettering may be described under three heads—large lettering, such as bond titles; small lettering, like that done on coupons, cards, and tickets; and script or writing. Some engravers can do good work in all of these branches of lettering, but in large establishments each man is kept employed at that style in which he excels.

In bonds and stock certificates the titles and script are usually done on the plate from which they are to be printed, but there is a lot of small work, common to jobs of that kind, which is done on what are called "dies" or "bedpieces," and transferred from the rolls to the plates. This will be more fully de scribed later.

In large lettering a drawing of the outline of the letters is made on paper to get the shapes, curves, and spacing correct. A tracing of this outline is then made on gelatin, and, after filling this with vermilion, a thin coating of wax is laid on the plate and a transfer of the gelatin tracing put on the wax. Next the outline is carefully marked through the wax on to the plate; the wax is taken off and the artist is ready to begin his cutting.

Lettering on bank notes, if there is to be more than one note on a plate, is engraved on "dies" or "bedpieces" and transferred to the plate. This insures the exact duplication of the material of each of the notes, and also makes it possible to reproduce and retouch the work at any time.

—Picture and scroll work is the most expensive connected with the bank-note business, and is divided into three classes, viz., scroll, portrait, and vignette engraving. It is a very unusual thing to find a man who is a first-class artist in more than one of these branches, and there are none that are even good in all three. This is one of the safeguards of the