Nilaish Paper Money Collection

Nilaish Paper Money Collection

Sunday, January 26, 2014

The role of Perkins & Company in Indian Early Paper Money

By Nilaish, MBA
Life Member of IBNS-IBCC 

"Earliest Currency notes in India known so far by Bank of Bengal is dated 1812 and is an uniface note. Later issues after 1822 shows the name of the engraver and the printer of the currency notes." 

A Brief Timeline of Perkins & Bacon Co. London 
  • 1808-1810 Jacob Perkins and Gideon Fairman produce the first known books in the USA to use steel plates.
  • ~1816 Jacob Perkins has "soft steel" plates to engrave on, and a method to harden the plates, and a process.
  • 1818 (April 15), Heath discussed the American bank notes printed by Perkins at the Society of Arts Committee on Forgery.
  • Bank of England was offering a £20,000 prize for unforgeable notes.
  • 1819 (May 31) Perkins sets sail for England after communicating with Charles Heath.
  • 1819 (June 29) Perkins arrives in Liverpool, England.
  • 1819 (July) Sir Joseph Banks met with Perkins.
  • 1819 (December 20) The Heaths join Perkins and Fairman forming Perkins, Fairman and Heath.
  • 1819 George Heath provides some financial backing only.
  • 1820 (Feb) Bank of England chooses another solution, but other business follows, including £1 notes and stamps.
  • 1820 (Feb) Perkins among other ventures, goes into the book publishing business with the Heaths and Fairman.
  • 1820 (summer) Perkins Fairman and Heath move to 69 Fleet Street, London.
  • 1820 (September) Perkins had sold 1,000 plates he had intended to use on the Bank of England project.
  • 1822 Perkins and Heath
  • 1829 Perkins and Bacon. Joshua Butters Bacon ( Perkins' son in law), buys Heaths interest.
  • 1834-1852 Perkins, Bacon & Petch (Henry Petch was an engraver, who was also made a partner).
  • 1839 Perkins Bacon and Co are asked to make plates and dies for stamps (the Penny Black was their first stamp).

Image Courtesy: Boston Monthly Magazine (1826)


There is an overlap of Perkins, Bacon & Petch and Perkins, Bacon and Co; not all business ventures included all partners and percentage ownership is detailed as changing as shares were bought and sold between partners, and money was loaned to partners from the company. Additionally, Charles Heath had many other individual business ventures, as did Perkins. Heath and Perkins had numerous talents and successes, however, they routinely had financial problems. Fortunately, the accounting was very good. Charles Heath had professional relationships with several people that spanned decades. Jacob Perkins retired in 1843 and died in London on 30 July 1849, at 83 years of age. He was buried in Kensal Green CemeteryLondon.

Modern Engraving & Printing was the key!
England’s currency was being forged at an alarming rate around 1810. The smaller bills were even being forged by people with little skill. They made this a crime punishable by death, but this did nothing to stop the forgery. England had the Royal Society create several reports on the problems, starting about 1818. They looked worldwide at currencies and really liked the American inventor Jacob Perkins’ bills for Massachusetts. The new USA National Bank chose Perkins plates to print the new national currency in the USA. In England, Charles Heath even gave a speech about him to the Royal Society. Jacob Perkins not only invented soft steel plates that could be hardened after being engraved, he also invented a roller which would apply higher pressure, and 64 piece plates (and more: nails, fire equipment, etc.). An expensive lathe technique was employed to make complicated designs for currencies (Asa Spencer invented it and sold the rights, and became an employee).Charles Heath wrote letters asking Jacob Perkins to come to England, as England was offering a £20,000 prize for creating forgery proof notes. Jacob Perkins was paid or loaned £5,000 and went to England with his machines, plates and associates and set up shop confident he would win the award, leaving his brother in charge of his Boston shop. He made presentations, and engraved sample notes. He worked in London for months, until it became clear they were not going to award the contract for national currency to a foreigner. The reports themselves mention Jacob Perkins currency or techniques more than anyone else, and in the end they applied some of his techniques, but did not employ him (at that time). England was currently using copper plates for their currency, and was using 1,500 engraved plates a year. One of the findings of the early reports was that Jacob’s steel plates would cost the Bank half as much to produce bills of much higher quality. They had underestimated the number of impressions from the plates, and the true cost would be less than 1/10 the cost because of the long life of his steel plates.

Patent: 
GB 4400/1819. Machinery and implements applicable to ornamental turning and engraving, transferring engraved or other work from the surface of one to another piece of metal, and forming metallic dies and matrices; construction of plates and presses for printing bank-notes and other papers; making dies and presses for coining money, stamping medals, and for other purposes (11 October 1819). 

Indian Early Paper Money (1810-1860): Engraved & Printed by Perkins & Company
Bank of Bengal, 1825, 100 Sicca Rupees.
Engraved & Printed by Perkins & Heath London - Patent Hardened Steel Plate. 

Bank of Bombay, 1860, 10 Rupees. 
Engraved & Printed by Perkins Bacon & Co. London, Patent Hardened Steel Plate. 

Bank of Madras, 3000 Rupees Proof on card,
Engraved & Printed by Perkins, Bacon & Petch, London, Patent Hardened Steel Plate. 

On notes Printer names are identified above. 

Exercise for collectors?
Bank Notes of India prior to 1822 were printed by whom? This is a disturbing question, as according to me it is pointing to Portals Ltd., for almost 300 years Portals has been widely acclaimed as the leading banknote substrate manufacturer in the world. It has manufactured banknote paper for the Bank of England since 1724. Let us observe and compare the below two notes!  

Bank of Bengal, 1819, 250 Sicca Rupees.
Hand molded, Watermarked paper. 
Plate Printing 


Bank of England, 8 March 1819, Henry Hase, £1. 
Hand Molded, Watermarked Paper 
Plate Printing.  

Portals was taken over by De la Rue in 1995. It can be assumed that directors of the Banks in India imported banknote paper from Portals between 1810 and 1822. This can be also a case that notes were Printed by Perkins & Heath? 

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