How a peasant son saved the world from counterfeiting

2024 Author: Seth Attwood | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 15:55

Take any large bill and find subtle patterns on it, printed with iridescent paints, as if the colors of the rainbow have no boundaries, but flow into each other. This is either an iris print, or an Orlov print - one of the two (we will talk about the differences below). It was invented by Ivan Ivanovich Orlov, an employee of the Expedition of Procurement of State Papers.

The problem of protecting banknotes from counterfeiting has always existed, starting with medieval China, where flexible "banknotes" made of mulberry leaves were in circulation long before the use of such a practice in Europe. Until the end of the 19th century, banknotes were protected in very dubious ways. First of all - the most delicate and high-quality printing, which was difficult to imitate in artisanal conditions, as well as specific paper and paint composition. In addition, there were perfins (securities and stamps punched at certain points by a system of holes), and employees of the issuing organization often personally signed papers of a small circulation.

All this did not bother counterfeiters too much, because in a bank a fake dollar could be distinguished from a real one, but in a provincial store it was unlikely. This problem was acute in Russia as well. From the moment the counterfeiters stopped pouring molten lead down their throats, the criminals got loose in earnest. And then the hero of our story appeared on the stage. Orlov and his printing press.

Ivan Orlov was a real native of the people, as they say now, a self-made man. Initially, he did not have any bright prospects, rich parents, excellent education and wide opportunities. He was born on June 19, 1861 in the tiny village of Meledino near Nizhny Novgorod in the family of a poor peasant. His father went to work in Taganrog, where he died when Vanya was only a year old. The mother, in turn, went to work in Nizhny, and the boy and his two sisters remained in the care of their grandmothers. All of them, when the need was especially strong, went to the surrounding villages, begging for alms.

Ivan was helped by talent, perseverance and a bit of luck. Arriving with his mother in Nizhny Novgorod, the boy entered the Kulibinsk vocational school - by that time he was good at carving in wood and drawing, earning, among other things, by selling his handicrafts. His main occupation, however, was washing dishes and small errands in the tavern where his mother worked. But it was there that the smart boy was noticed by a large Nizhny Novgorod merchant Ivan Vlasov (known for the manor house that has survived to this day in Nizhny Novgorod), who helped Orlov with admission to the school. The boy mastered the art of carpentry, and at the same time learned to speak "in the city" and generally got used to a completely different way of life. Subsequently, in 1879, Vlasov helped the young master take another step up - to move to Moscow and enter the Stroganov School of Technical Drawing.

An ordinary illustration is faked relatively easily: counterfeiters only need to make a high-quality matrix - it’s more than once to spit, of course, but there were plenty of skilled engravers in Russia. Paint and paper is the tenth thing. Since counterfeit bills were sold in shops and bazaars, no one particularly bothered with such subtleties. Well, the tone is slightly different, but who will notice?

Iris print ("iris" in Greek - rainbow) radically changes the situation. This is a technology that allows you to print a pattern or drawing in different colors, blending into each other without border lines, that is, in fact, to make a gradient fill, only with the help of the mechanics of a printing press. Moreover, the printing takes place at the same time, from one ink box, from one rolling form, and not as it was usually done in the 19th century, when each successive color was applied over the previous layer after it had dried.

The Oryol seal is a similar technology. With its help, thin lines are applied to the paper not with a gradient, but with a sharp transition of colors, but at the same time each line remains the same, as if it were printed with one stamp, just different parts of it were painted in different colors.

The results of both iris and Oryol prints on paper look beautiful, but not that very difficult. Only now it is extremely difficult to forge these technologies without special equipment, and, perhaps, not at all. Color illustration can be done in various ways. But the color illustration, which cannot be faked, is just that.

From learning to invention

In Stroganovka, Orlov studied, among other things, weaving and after graduation went to a factory of furniture fabrics. There he worked with jacquard looms and even made with the help of one of them a copy of the portrait of Nikolai Alexandrovich, at that time the heir to the throne. The portrait was presented to the sovereign, and Orlov received a gold watch as a prize. It was 1883.

And in 1885, Orlov read an article about counterfeiting money in one of the Moscow newspapers. The material was critical and even caustic, the author blamed the government for the inability to print banknotes that were in any way protected from counterfeiting. Orlov became interested in this issue and developed a preliminary design of a system that would make it possible to make patterns that are extremely difficult to copy. He sent the project to the Expedition of Procurement of State Papers in St. Petersburg and received an invitation to come and talk. Although the project at that time was considered unfeasible, the talented young man was invited to work as the chief foreman of the Expedition's weaving workshop.

So on March 1, 1886, his life changed forever. After the weaving workshop, he worked in the form department and at the same time conducted research at home on the topic of protecting banknotes from counterfeiting. His projects interested the new, just appointed in 1889, the manager of the Expedition for Procurement of State Papers, Professor Robert Lenz, who bought equipment for Orlov and helped to equip the laboratory. Two years later, the Oryol car was built. More precisely, two cars: one at the Russian plant in the Oder, the second at the German factory Koenig & Bauer in Würzburg, where Orlov went on a business trip on this occasion.

The patent received by Orlov later, in 1897, was called "Method of multicolor printing from one cliché". The idea was surprisingly simple: the colors were collected together not on paper in the form of prints, but also on a printed form. At that time, all such printing was called Orlov, and the division into iris and Orlov happened later (and, in principle, the line between them is so thin that any of these terms is often used as a generalizing one). Subsequently, the iris print was also called "rainbow" and "rolling print". In both cases, one plate cylinder is used, four compartments of which are filled with paints, and the fifth serves as a printing plate that collects colors together.

Naturally, Orlov's invention was kept in the strictest confidence. No counterfeiter should have understood how this amazing effect was made - an even pattern with a gradient. In 1892, using the Oryol technology, the first 25-ruble notes were printed, that is, rather large bills. Behind them, in the period from 1894 to 1912, banknotes of 5, 10, 100 and 500 rubles appeared. And, I must say, the new banknotes made a splash in the world banking market. No one has ever seen such a seal.

Orlov's car was first presented to the world in the same 1892 at the European Forum of Bankers. This led to numerous orders for a similar seal for various states and private credit institutions. For the first time, the Russian Expedition for Procurement of State Papers was at the forefront of technologies and, moreover, was able to export these technologies. Subsequently, Orlov's cars were shown at the World Exhibitions in Chicago (1893) and Paris (1900), and also received an award from the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences.

Rights and privileges

Orlov's receipt of the invention privilege was not without its rough edges. In 1892, the senior foreman of the printing department of the Expedition of Procurement of State Papers Rudometov, who was well acquainted with the machine, which was still being tested at that time, without thinking twice, submitted a petition to the Department of Trade and Manufactures for granting him a privilege for multicolor printing. Lenz stopped this, firing Rudometov for disclosing and insisting that Orlov himself filed the petition.

As a result, Orlov in 1897-1899 received patents in Germany, France, Great Britain and Russia, and also wrote two monographs about his inventions: "A new method of multicolor printing from one cliché" (1897) and "A new method of multicolor printing. Supplement to the message in the Imperial Russian Technical Society "(1898). The already mentioned Würzburg company Koenig & Bauer organized the serial production of Orlov machines.

Orlov himself traveled a lot around Europe, getting acquainted with various printing technologies and making improvements to his design, and then for some time he lived in London on the money received from the sale of a patent to a British company. Nevertheless, he was very fond of Russia and - purely for patriotic reasons - returned, although he still left his work in the Expedition for the preparation of state papers. With his royalties, he bought himself a house in the village of Krasnaya Gorka and two small factories - a horse and a distillery. This continued his life until 1917.

Revolution in everything

As you might guess, soon after the events of 1917, both Orlov's factories went bankrupt (the state approved a monopoly on the production of alcohol, and interruptions began with feed for horses in the time of troubles). The estate was confiscated, and in 1919 Orlov was even arrested for counterfeiting "kerenoks", but released for lack of corpus delicti. One way or another, he became a beggar, as if suddenly returning to the days of his hungry childhood.

In 1921, a former colleague Struzhkov organized a meeting between Orlov and the new leadership of the Expedition for Procurement of State Papers, which was renamed Goznak under the new government. He accepted him as a consultant, but refused to take on a permanent job. Most likely, the key role here was played by the style of the report that Orlov presented to Goznak as a proposal to hire him. In his report, he emphasized his authority, pointed out the imperfection of the printing house and suggested reforming everything. This approach turned out to be overly arrogant.

At the same time, what is the most ridiculous and sad at the same time, Goznak printed money using the Oryol method, in particular, large bills with denominations of 5000 and 10,000 rubles. And Struzhkov modified the Oryol printing system by designing a rotary machine capable of applying ink using this technology.

Until the end of his life, Orlov worked at a textile factory, was something of a freelance consultant to Goznak and died in 1928 - not in terrible poverty, as some people write, but, frankly, not in the position that an engineer of his level deserved.

Goznak specialists have repeatedly improved Orlov's system, creating more advanced machines and machine tools based on his technology. In addition, being a consultant, Orlov suggested using intaglio printing as a protection against counterfeiting. This technology consists in the fact that in different parts of the drawing, the ink is deposited in layers of different thickness, creating the effect of a relief roughness. It was invented at the end of the 19th century by the Czech illustrator Karel Klich - this is how, for example, photo engravings are made (Klich worked on them). Orlov, on the other hand, thought that such a method was applicable not only and not so much in art as in printing banknotes: complex and expensive equipment was needed to counterfeit intaglio printing, and a lone counterfeiter would definitely not be able to cope with this.

Oryol and iris printing technologies are still widely used today. German engineers are often cited as the inventors of this method, but we know that our compatriot Ivan Ivanovich Orlov, a simple Russian peasant, who proved that talent and labor will grind everything up, also achieved its worldwide distribution. … Or they will print it.