Mark Levin Show,M-F,6PM-9PM,EST,WABC AM,February 10,2016

“Conservatism is the antidote to tyranny precisely because its principles are the founding principles.” --Mark Levin in Liberty and Tyranny

Very interesting.

First, there were no private banks save the Bank of North America prior to the Constitution. So your comments about the Revolution are meaningless. They refer to state government notes-—which has nothing to do with my claim that private bankers had few counterfeiting concerns. So, scratch your entire first paragraph. Maybe YOU’RE not that good at research.

Your criminals appear to be guilty of counterfeiting STATE paper money issues (i.e., not issued through a bank), which I didn’t comment on and don’t care about.

But then we have some other problems. Apparently there were no private banks issuing actual banknotes in Vermont in 1809
(See “Peacham: The Story of a Vermont Hill Town” by Bogart, p. 285-87). There was a state bank created in 1806. No private banks were authorized in Vermont until 1818, meaning your counterfeiters were engaged in counterfeiting COINS (again, see “Peacham”)

As for Warburton, it’s not clear if he was counterfeiting coins or paper. There is no source outside a newspaper for the claim that 10% of bank notes were counterfeit. I haven’t seen a scholarly source on this, have you Mr. Researcher?

The U.S. government counterfeiting you are referring to-—again from a newspaper source-—is referring to government war-printed GREENBACKS, not National Bank Notes. These in fact were easy to counterfeit because they were not redeemable in gold. Both the Confederates and the Union during the war used government counterfeiting as a means to undermine the other’s currency, but for the South it only worked on Greenbacks, not the National Bank Notes. Please, keep trying though.

“The bank note reporters universally reflected merely the cost of collecting the national banks’ dollars and returning them to their region.”

That was hardly the sole factor addressed by banknote reporters as the following illustrate:

Shinplasters out West

Menasha, Wis., Nov.1,1852 - P. S.-This section of the State is flooded with shinplasters and unsecured money. The METROPOLITAN, (D. C.,) took the lead; CHARLOTTETOWN followed, and the MECHANICS of Georgetown, D. C., is now in the field to a great extent.

A SUBSCRIBER

There is no excuse for taking such trash, even in Wisconsin, for the Western States are fast supplying their own wants by a SAFE, WELL-SECURED, LEGAL CURRENCY.-Public opinion has fairly banished it from this section of the country.

http://www.americanbanker.com/175/1852/#year

1864
From Thompson’s Bank Note Reporter

Jan. 23 - Explanation of marks, &c.: A star (*) [means] that Thompson Bros. do not buy the notes.

...See the advertisement of the Receiver of the Washington County Bank, R. I. This concern was shaped for a great swindle, and but for our starring the Bank last summer, the rascals would have succeeded...Large amounts of these notes are in the hands of parties (accomplices) who will try to work them off. Don’t touch them. There were $700,000 of the notes of this Bank printed for circulation last summer. This was enough for us.

http://www.americanbanker.com/175/1864/#year

You have the inaction part right, but the Fed didnt actually do anything to cause the bank failures and the 30% collapse of the money supply. The collapse was a vicious spiral set in motion by bank runs, the absence of deposit insurance to protect customers, and the peculiarity of American branch banking law.

But the Fed's inaction was akin to a doctor who fails to give antibiotics to a patient with the beginnings of a serious bacterial infection. The Feds inaction set a chain of events in motion just as certainly as a proper action by the Fed could have set a chain of events in motion that would have prevented bank failures.

Inaction was a decision by the Fed, so they did do something that caused bank failures and the GD: they made the wrong decisions.

You are showing a fundamental lack of understanding of any of this.

Shinplasters were NOT National Bank Notes. They were specifically “free bank notes” also known as “wildcat” bank notes. In specific states, particularly Wisconsin and Michigan, “free banks” (named for their charters under free banking laws) saw some shady characters establish branches to redeem their notes “where a wildcat wouldn’t go.” The purpose was to make it impossible to redeem these notes, which also came to be called “shinplasters.” I have never seen a CHARTERED BANK’S notes referred to as “shinplasters,” and certainly not National Bank Notes.

Now, when someone says the “State is flooded with shinplasters and unsecured money,” such wildcat banks were supposedly secured by bonds that they put on deposit with the Secretary of State. However, as the value of the bonds fell (which they often did), the SoS could not sell them for par value and repay noteholders.

THIS IS NOT COUNTERFEITING. This is fraud perpetrated by the bankers themselves.

“You are showing a fundamental lack of understanding of any of this.”

Yeah, well if you actually knew what banknote reporters were doing you might have a point. But since you have ably demonstrated that you don’t, you might want to ponder whether the fundamental lack of understanding is your own.

It doesn’t matter that the first item I posted concerned western shinplasters. The second item involved the Washington County Bank of Rhode Island in the National Bank era, and oddly enough you failed to include that part of the post. Go figure.

But that really doesn’t matter either, because my point in posting the two items was to illustrate what banknote reporters were actually doing versus the nonsense idea that “bank note reporters universally reflected merely the cost of collecting the national banks’ dollars and returning them to their region”.

That’s a simple clearinghouse function that an annual chart could have provided.

Banknote reporters were daily publications, and that should have been your first clue that they were doing something more than reporting clearinghouse costs.

In fact what banknote reporters were doing was “sorting out the good banks and their notes from bad banks and their notes”, in the words of John Thompson, founder of Thompson’s Bank Note Reporter. That quote and a nice little history of it all can be found in the James Grant book I mentioned earlier in the thread. You might want to read it and expand your knowledge.

"The U.S. government counterfeiting you are referring to--again from a newspaper source--is referring to government war-printed GREENBACKS, not National Bank Notes."

No, it was talking about private bank notes and the ease of counterfeiting when so many different kinds of notes were circulating. The same thing that I had mentioned previously .

And the source was a White House website during the Clinton years, not a newspaper. Taking a few seconds to follow a link and check a footnote is what us big time researchers do in order not to make fools of ourselves. We leave being a fool to academics who imagine that they know more than they do.

I'll post the link first so you have less trouble finding it

http://clinton2.nara.gov/WH/kids/inside/html/spring98-2.html

"When the United States Secret Service (USSS) was established, its main duty was to prevent the illegal production, or counterfeiting, of money. In the 1800s, America's monetary system was very disorganized. Bills and coins were issued by each state through individual banks, which generated many types of legal currency. With so many different kinds of bills in circulation, it was easy for people to counterfeit money. During President Lincoln's Administration, more than a third of the nation's money was counterfeit. On the advice of Secretary of the Treasury Hugh McCulloch, President Lincoln established a commission to stop this rapidly growing problem that was destroying the nation's economy, and on April 14, 1865, he created the United States Secret Service to carry out the commission's recommendations."

"The Secret Service officially went to work on July 5, 1865. Its first chief was William Wood. Chief Wood, widely known for his heroism during the Civil War, was very successful in his first year, closing more than 200 counterfeiting plants. This success helped prove the value of the Secret Service, and in 1866 the National Headquarters was established in the Department of the Treasury building in Washington, D.C. "

Your analogy is flawed because prescribing antibiotics is routine and known to all doctors. The 1930s Fed was in uncharted territory and they didnâ€™t have our benefit of hindsight.

No flaw at all. The Fed was created to intervene in financial crises the largest banks had handled at times prior to the Fed. A decision to not do something is an act of decision making.

And the Fed did intervene in the financial markets in the early part of the GD by raising the discount rate and by selling gov't bonds. One explanation for that is that maybe the thought they were defending the gold standard, which does not readily allow for an expansion of the money supply.

The Fed always has been and always will be an institution where its decisions to act, or not act, will have influence on the financial markets and the economy. People wait with baited breath to discern whether today's Fed will act to bring about increased interest rates, or not.

I know what bank note reporters were. Dillisten’s was the best. Again, apparently in Washington Hugh McCulloch thought counterfeiting was a problem, but in hundreds of bankers’ correspondences, internal documents (not public as you suggest), and other INTERNAL (I repeat that since you keep missing it) not one banker, anywhere, complained about counterfeiting of their notes.

I suspect-—again, since you don’t know the history-—that the person who wrote the US government website, probably a MA with a degree in European history-—conflated Greenbacks with national bank notes.

Of course, the problem at the time was deflation. If there was massive counterfeiting, there would be inflation. And yes, some northern states like Rhode Island had “shinplasters,” though they weren’t the worst offenders. But since you rely on a couple of websites rather than actually reading the history, you wouldn’t know that.

Feel free to continue posting your little newspaper articles and US government nonsense. I can give you a dozen sources if you are really interested, but clearly you know it all.

"but clearly you know it all."

That's an amusing bit of irony.

"Feel free to continue posting your little newspaper articles and US government nonsense. "

Ah, the good old the Genetic Fallacy. A favorite rhetorical tool of those who skipped logic.

"I suspect--again, since you don't know the history--that the person who wrote the US government website, probably a MA with a degree in European history--conflated Greenbacks with national bank notes.

I doubt that. The author was probably familiar with material like Heath's Infallible Counterfeit Detector at Sight Review

and the 1872 memoir of the first years of the Secret Service.

Memoirs of the United States Secret Service By George Pickering Burnham

The memoir describes counterfeiters pursued and the bank notes that they had been faking. The first 175 pages out of 400 include Pete McCartney who was caught with $60,000 in bogus notes and a set of $5 plates on National western banks. Bill Gurney who counterfeited $20 National Shoe and Leather Bank of NY notes, Fishkill Bank notes, and the Newburgh National $10. William Brockway who counterfeited $5 New Haven Bank notes, $5 North River Bank notes and $2 NY State Bank notes. Lame Sam Brown who dealt in fake National Bank Of Newburgh notes. And so on.

You keep showing your ignorance. Half the bank’s you list are not national banks (New Haven, North River, Fishkill) Gee, that’s a problem.

ONLY national banks could print notes.

But, to humor you I checked a half dozen of the top histories of banking in the era. Not ONE described counterfeiting as a problem. Indeed, it was so NOT a problem that Bray Hammond’s famous Banks and Politics has 2 index references to counterfeiting-—one in the 1780s ( before there were banks except the Bank of North America) and a second index reference that doesn’t even contain the word on tha page cited.

So, you can keep posting all you want but I’m done. You DON’T know what you’re talking about, DON’T know the difference between a Greenback and a National Bank note, DON’T seem to know th difference between banks that could, and could not print money, DON’T get that hundreds of bank records, bankers diaries and internal memos not ONCE saw counterfeiting as a problem, and didn’t even know that clearing houses cleared every night.

Back to school for you.

“Half the bank’s you list are not national banks (New Haven, North River, Fishkill) Gee, that’s a problem.”

But the other half were. Which is not a problem for me. But then I’m not the one who insisted that counterfeiting didn’t exist for National Banks.

It seems that one of your main skills is ad hominem. I find that’s a common habit among those who can find nothing to defend their argument and who lack the character to admit error or at least shut up.

“I checked a half dozen of the top histories of banking in the era. Not ONE described counterfeiting as a problem”

The US Secret Service was founded in 1865 solely to combat counterfeiting.

The 1872 Secret Service memoir details counterfeiters of National Bank notes as well as Greenbacks.

And somehow in the magical era when supposedly no counterfeits were being produced this book continued to sell:

Heath’s Infallible Counterfeit Detector at Sight Review

“Heath began writing the Detector books so people would have an original impression of a banknote to determine authenticity at sight. Not only would he use the plates to show what a real engraving looks like but he would describe what to look for in a counterfeit as well as the likelihood of a design feature to be successfully counterfeited. Before this book one would use The Bank Note Reporter which would describe the notes in circulation from various banks. It would also give reports on defunct or wildcat banks. Often it would take time for this information to get into the Reporter and by then the damage would have been done. Beginning in 1861 the US began printing money in the form of Demand Notes (Fr. 1-15) followed by the first Legal Tender issues in 1862 (Fr. 16-17, 41, 61-63, 93-95, 124-126, 148-150, 165-167, 183, and 186). Heath saw an opening to inform the masses on the new circulating currency.

His 1864 book was a huge success selling 25,000 copies. Heath noted in his 10th edition that this number would have been even higher but, new notes were produced (the Greenback and the National Bank Note). In each edition he covered different types of notes; sometimes you will find Nationals and other times Fractionals. In many editions you would also discover vignettes, protectors, and counters. All for the benefit of being able to recognize good authentic engraving.

To my surprise these books are fairly easy to come by in worn condition. Often times all the plates will still be intact which adds to the value of the book. Even if you only wanted a plate (or two) one can purchase those with a quick Internet search. I’m sure if you check your favorite auction house it wouldn’t be long until one came up for auction. To top it all off PMG recognizes and encapsulates Heath’s counterfeit plates.”

You keep showing your ignorance. Half the bank's you list are not national banks (New Haven, North River, Fishkill) Gee, that's a problem. ONLY national banks could print notes."

Old Money from The Second National Bank Of New Haven

The Second National Bank Of New Haven

The Second National Bank Of New Haven in Connecticut printed $15,618,700 dollars worth of national currency. Once a bank issues that much money there really isn't much room for rare issues. However, there are certainly exceptions to every rule. This national bank opened in 1864 and stopped printing money in 1935, which equals a 72 year printing period.

Old Money from The National Bank Of Fishkill

The National Bank Of Fishkill

The National Bank Of Fishkill in New York printed $395,850 dollars worth of national currency. That is a pretty standard output. However, some types of currency from this bank could still be rare. This national bank opened in 1865 and stopped printing money in 1877, which equals a 13 year printing period. That is actually quite brief in terms of bank existence. During its life, The National Bank Of Fishkill issued 11 different types and denominations of national currency.

North River Bank Paper Money Guide

The following is some very basic information about the denominations and years that The North River Bank printed money:

The branch bank location in Hoboken issued the following types of currency:
1st Series (Denomination & Dates):
$1 - Nov 10, 1864 2nd Series: $2 - Nov 10, 1864
3rd Series: $3 - Nov 10, 1864
4th Series: $5 - Nov 10, 1864

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