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"the practice of fraud, while the milled edge has always provided for detecting the best counterfeit coins.
The letters of an inscription for a coin can only be punched singly and by hand; it cannot therefore be guaranteed that the letters upon one collar or die shall be in exactly the same position as the letters upon other collar or die.
I consider that a Dollar with a lettered edge might be more easily imitated than one with a milled edge. After a portion of silver had been taken from the interior of the coin and the space filled with base metal, a thin band of silver upon which the legend had been previously imitated might be placed round the edge and so neatly soldered as to escape detection except by a careful and thoroughly practised observer. On the other hand, the slightest irregularity in the lines of the milled edge is sufficient to demonstrate that fraud has been committed.
I am therefore decidedly in favour of, and recommend a milled edge in preference to a lettered edge for the Hongkong Dollar.
The cost of the alterations made by Messrs Watt & Co. in one of the presses is £120, and they are willing to alter the other three presses for a further sum of £120.
Although, if a milled edge is decided upon, the sum of £120 will be sacrificed, I nevertheless consider the experiment a valuable one, inasmuch as it has demonstrated that in order to place a legend upon the edge of the Dollar, it will be necessary to add such a complicated piece of mechanism to the presses as it will be...