Using the techniques of physics, we have been able to restore, in part, some of what that record would have shown.” “But the ledger where we know he recorded these printing decisions and methods has been lost to history. “To maintain the notes’ dependability, Franklin had to stay a step ahead of counterfeiters,” said Manukyan. In response, Franklin worked to embed a suite of security features that made his bills distinctive. There were no standardized bills in the Colonial period, leaving an opportunity for counterfeiters to pass off fake bills as real ones. Unlike gold and silver, paper money’s lack of intrinsic value meant it was constantly at risk of depreciating. When Franklin opened his printing house in 1728, paper money was a relatively new concept. However, one major problem stood in the way of efforts to print paper money: counterfeiting. Most of the silver and gold coins brought to the British American colonies were rapidly drained away to pay for manufactured goods imported from abroad, leaving the Colonies without sufficient monetary supply to expand their economy,” Manukyan said. “Benjamin Franklin saw that the Colonies’ financial independence was necessary for their political independence. Manukyan explained that the effort to print money for the fledgling Colonial monetary system was important to Franklin not just as a printer but as a statesman as well. The Colonial notes span an 80-year period and include notes printed by Franklin’s network of printing shops and other printers, as well as a series of counterfeit notes. The research team, led by Khachatur Manukyan, an associate research professor in the Department of Physics and Astronomy, has spent the past seven years analyzing a trove of nearly 600 notes from the Colonial period, which is part of an extensive collection developed by the Hesburgh Libraries’ Rare Books and Special Collections. During his career, Franklin printed nearly 2,500,000 money notes for the American Colonies using what the researchers have identified as highly original techniques, as reported in a study published this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
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