Benjamin Franklin, the inventor, publisher, diplomat and founding father, was so busy that it's easy to lose track of his accomplishments. Add to those his early work in printing colonial paper currency, which was plagued by constant counterfeiting.
Benjamin Franklin was so busy as an inventor, publisher, diplomat and U.S. founding father that it’s easy to lose track of his accomplishments.
Franklin was an early innovator of printing techniques that used colored threads, watermarks and imprints of natural objects such as leaves to make it far harder for others to create knockoffs of the paper bills he printed. A team at Notre Dame University has shed new light on his methods via advanced scanning techniques that reveal some of Franklin’s methods in greater detail — along the way, also providing one more reason Franklin appears on the $100 bill.
The work examined Franklin's penchant for including watermarks, tiny indigo-dyed threads and “fillers” of special crystal in printed bills to create barriers to copycats. It also highlighted Franklin's use of “nature printing,” a technique by which he transferred the detailed vein patterns of tree leaves to printing plates.
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