Heath's Infallible Counterfeit Detector at SIGHT. The only infallible method of detecting counterfeit, spurious, and alltered bank-notes, and applicable to all banks in the United States and Canadas, as now in circulation, or that may be issued, WITH GENUINE BANK-NOTE DESIGNS by the American Bank-Note Company New York and Boston

Boston, [Massachusetts]: Laban Heath, 1864. First Edition. Cloth. Good. First Edition. 26, [1], [1 (blank)] pages plus 8 plates extra to the pagination (plate 6 is the frontis). Publisher's brown cloth with stamped decorations in blind and gilt. Spotting and wear to the cloth. The plates are black and white engravings by the American Bank Note Company with the exception of plate 4 (which is colored red and an engraving) and plate 8 which is in green color (lithographed?) but unmarked as to printer. Worn with binding coming loose as often the case with these books which were heavily used in commerce. Occasional spotting internally and exhibiting the usual offsetting from the engravings on the tissue and in some cases the opposite page. Cloth. The Heath Counterfeit Detector was enthusiastically produced over many years and sold tens of thousands of copies few of which seem to have survived. Numismatist Eric P. Newman did the authoritative work on the many editions and varieties of this work, covering 13 editions on over ten pages in his reference on the subject. We offer an example of the first edition from 1864, Newman's variety 1-P-1.5, with dated title page and one page of recommendations in the rear the lastest dated June 23, 1864. This first edition containing 8 plates continued until the fourth thousand (Newman's 1-P-4) when a two more tipped in plates were added (for a total of 10) plus an additional page of explanatory text.

For those interested in microscopy and scientific instruments Heath also sold a microscope to be used in counterfeit detection. All of Laban Heath's work is collected seriously in the numismatic world, and in the book world for its value in understanding counterfeiting and crime as well as the use of fine engraved printing for such a task.

LITERATURE:
American Numismatic Associaton Centennial Anthology, 1991, p 241 (Newman, Eric P, "Heath's Counterfeit Detectors: An Extraordinarily Successful Comedy of Errors").