2016-04-07 Thu

Imagine a cute little book bound within a dollar bill measuring only 3 inches by 2.625 inches and 10 pages long! The Quoin Press published this interesting miniature book in 1978, titled ‘WHAT IT’S WORTH …and that’s not much’.

Traditionally, the printer creates a form (think “page”) and places it into a rectangular steel frame called a “chase.” A quoin is a wooden or expandable metal block used to lock up the form inside of the chase. Today modern printing methods have taken over letterpress printing.

“Quoin” is pronounced almost the same as “coin,” This little book’s unnamed author made a satirical point about the powerful dollar both visually and textually. Visually, the book is bound in a Series 1977 Federal Reserve note for Dallas. The text on the book reads: “Now highly inflated, it is threatened as the one standard currency on the world’s money markets.” Unlike other such miniatures, this one fixes the precise day when the dollar began its decline: 1st October, 1957.

After that, the Bureau of Engraving and Printing adopted a time consuming process of making all U.S. currency on flat-bed cylinder presses, using moistened paper. A cheaper and quicker option was the British-made, high-speed, sheet-fed rotary presses using the dry intaglio process requiring only three days. The author sarcastically suggests replacing the rotary press by a handpress to slow the process. The 1957 bills also were the first to carry the motto “In God We Trust,” and the writer makes a funny comment that, “Since then, we have been able to trust in little else, certainly not a stable dollar.”

The closing note says “Set, folded and bound by hand, and printed a page at a time, on a small handpress, in an edition of 200 copies.”