Government Counterfeit Detector Vol. XXXVII, No. 2

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: John S. Dye, 1888. Very Good. Government Counterfeit Detector Vol. XXXVII, No. 2, John S. Dye, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, July 1888, 5 x 9 inches, 64 pp.

Staple-bound booklet; wrappers slightly toned and chipped to edges; spine moderately chipped, exposing signatures; interior pages clean, unmarked, very slightly toned; overall very good condition.

Rare issue of John S. Dye's Government Counterfeit Detector; no copies of 1888 issues found in OCLC or commerce as of January 2024. Dye first published a counterfeit detector in Cincinnati in 1850, and later published several more counterfeit detectors, a bank note reporter, and a book on notorious counterfeiters of the day. After his death in 1881, associates of Dye's, including Edward S. Wheeler, completed a coin encyclopedia he had nearly finished; Wheeler, and after his death, Frederick A. Lester, continued to publish a counterfeit detector bearing his name until 1910. As Wheeler died in 1883, this 1888 issue would have been published by Lester. From John S. Dye and His Counterfeit Detectors by Patrick M. Parkinson: "After he obtained the copyright, Lester did not change the contents of the detector significantly. In July 1890, however, he dropped the silly claim that the detector was published by order of the long-dead Secretary Folger. However, he continued to claim it was an "Official Organ" and substituted a statement that it was published "under the supervision of the Secret Service by order of the then Secretary of the Treasury Department," presumably still referring to Folger but not by name. By then, numerous competing government counterfeit detectors were being published. In June 1892, one of those competitors had had enough. Dickerman's United States Treasury Counterfeit Detector, which called itself the "Standard Authority," castigated Dye's Detector as "that fake 'official organ'" (Parkinson, 68).