The Aesthetics of Authenticity: Printed Banknotes as Industrial Currency

Popular opinion in Britain regarding paper currency underwent a dramatic transformation in the first half of the nineteenth century. In 1800, paper money was commonly disliked and mistrusted; by the Great Exhibition of 1851, it had become generally accepted. Now, of course, paper currency is so well-established a notion that readers of this article must struggle somewhat to grasp its strangeness, even perversity. But in the early nineteenth century, paper stood more plainly in contrast to gold and silver. These "noble metals" were inert, heavy, and imperishable, and made the vaguely pejorative slang for banknote paper, "flimsy," seem entirely apt.¹ Fear of forgery, unfavorable political events, and the development of print technology during this period all threatened to undermine belief in the authenticity and value of printed paper currency. Nevertheless, by midcentury a level of trust "without doubt and without reasoning" had been established.² I will argue in this article that the flimsy banknote itself, by virtue of its appearance as a product of mechanical reproduction, helped to build that trust.³

In the late eighteenth century such a development seemed unlikely. Although promissory notes were already an established medium of exchange, banknotes, described by David Hume in 1752 as "this new invention of paper," were an innovation.⁴ Paper currency has been described as the visible embodiment of the credit operations and relationships driving the "capitalist engine" of the time.⁵ But events in Britain, France, and the newly independent United States of America highlighted the question of paper currency's trustworthiness. Adding to the general social and economic disturbances, subversive connotations attached themselves to the banknote. The American War of Independence and the French Revolution both depended on paper currency. In 1830 the Edinburgh Encyclopaedia, after scorning both revolutionary-era currencies as being driven by "favourite anticipations," seemed to condone paper's practical effect:

Paper currency seems the last refinement which it is possible to make in saving the expence [sic] of a circulating medium. . . . Nothing . . . can support credit except a thorough confidence that the article of value will be forthcoming. . . . The war of 1775 on the part of the United States of America and still more the French revolutionary war are memorable instances of fallacious emissions. . . .

Though used in the most lavish manner, their credit, in either case, lasted long enough to enable the respective governments to baffle all the efforts of their opponents.⁶

Britain had avoided political revolution, but had nevertheless been forced during the Napoleonic Wars to suspend cash payments and depend solely upon paper currency between 1797 and 1821.⁷ The French paper assignats had initially been floated on the security of expropriated church lands in 1789, but increasing lack of faith in the currency's value led to disastrous hyperinflation by 1795.⁸ Moreover, Britain had attempted to destabilize the situation even further by producing counterfeit assignats.⁹ Paper money thus seemed potentially doubly dangerous: a potentially "fallacious emission" of government that almost by definition invited forgery.

These events focused attention on paper currency in early-nineteenth-century Britain, and the seemingly obtuse question "what is the value of a one-pound note?" became a matter for serious, often alarmed, consideration in books, articles, pamphlets, and the reports of government committees.¹⁰ These commentaries ranged from the serious, such as the Society of Arts Committee Report on Banknote Forgery of 1819, to the cranky, such as the 1816 pamphlet by a Mr. Balbirnie of Glasgow, Reflections on the Bank Paper Currency, in which he announced his "secret plan" for forgery-proof banknotes based on "mysterious paper" and indelible inks.¹¹ Balbirnie's idea was that fake notes would instantly disintegrate when subjected to his secret reagent; the author had been prompted to conduct his experiments after accepting a forged note and losing money.

In all these publications the overriding issues were gold versus paper money and the dangers of forgery. Two problems suggested themselves...