A geometric lathe was used for making ornamental patterns on the plates used in printing
bank note
A banknote—also called a bill ( North American English), paper money, or simply a note—is a type of negotiable promissory note, made by a bank or other licensed authority, payable to the bearer on demand.
Banknotes were originally issue ...
s and
postage stamp
A postage stamp is a small piece of paper issued by a post office, postal administration, or other authorized vendors to customers who pay postage (the cost involved in moving, insuring, or registering mail), who then affix the stamp to the f ...
s. It is sometimes called a
guilloché
Guilloché (; or guilloche) is a decorative technique in which a very precise, intricate and repetitive pattern is mechanically engraved into an underlying material via engine turning, which uses a machine of the same name, also called a r ...
lathe. It was developed early in the nineteenth
century
A century is a period of 100 years. Centuries are numbered ordinally in English and many other languages. The word ''century'' comes from the Latin ''centum'', meaning ''one hundred''. ''Century'' is sometimes abbreviated as c.
A centennial or ...
when efforts were introduced to combat forgery, and is an adaptation of an
ornamental turning lathe. The lathe was able to generate intersecting and interlacing patterns of fine lines in various shapes, which were almost impossible to forge by hand-engraving. They were used by many national
mint
MiNT is Now TOS (MiNT) is a free software alternative operating system kernel for the Atari ST system and its successors. It is a multi-tasking alternative to TOS and MagiC. Together with the free system components fVDI device drivers, XaAE ...
s.
Further reading
*Peter Bower, 'Economic warfare: Banknote Forgery as a deliberate weapon', and Maureen Greenland, 'Compound plate printing and nineteenth-century bank notes, in Virginia Hewitt, ed. ''The Banker's Art: Studies in paper money'', pp 46–63, and pp 84–87, The British Museum Press, 1995, ()
See also
*
Security printing
Security printing is the field of the printing industry that deals with the printing of items such as banknotes, cheques, passports, tamper-evident labels, security tapes, product authentication, stock certificates, postage stamps and identity ...
*
Spirograph
Spirograph is a geometric drawing device that produces mathematical roulette curves of the variety technically known as hypotrochoids and epitrochoids. The well-known toy version was developed by British engineer Denys Fisher and first sold ...
*
Tusi couple
The Tusi couple is a mathematical device in which a small circle rotates inside a larger circle twice the diameter of the smaller circle. Rotations of the circles cause a point on the circumference of the smaller circle to oscillate back and fo ...
*
Guilloché
Guilloché (; or guilloche) is a decorative technique in which a very precise, intricate and repetitive pattern is mechanically engraved into an underlying material via engine turning, which uses a machine of the same name, also called a r ...
External links
Ornamental TurningCNC Turning vs Centerless Grinding
Money forgery
Automatic lathes
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