Drying Silver Certificates

The technology of money is always changing. Before crypto and even before high-speed intaglio presses, money was truly made by hand.

Here we are in 1914, drying sheets of Silver Certificates in Washington, DC. The banknotes at this time were printed four to a sheet by the "wet method." This meant that you had to make the banknote paper wet before each of its three printings (once on the back, twice on the face).

A moistened sheet would be run through the press, and then had to be allowed to dry to set the ink. Then, the paper would be wet again, and etc. The photo shows a drying room with drawers full of partially printed sheets. The workers are flipping through the stacks to separate the sheets.

You had to print with moistened paper because the hand-worked presses of the time did not generate enough force to drive the ink into the dry, all-linen paper used in 1914.