Banknotes still trust the burin’s unforgeable line
Engraving cuts designs into hard flat surfaces with a hardened steel burin or graver, decorating metal and glass or printing from inked plates. Copper-plate line engraving once dominated artistic prints, maps, and book plates before photography and other intaglio methods largely replaced it for images—yet security paper still depends on it.
Lay speech mislabels any old black-and-white print an engraving; experts separate true burin work from etching, mezzotint, and kin, and many old master plates mix several methods at once. Gérard Edelinck’s portrait after Hyacinthe Rigaud, for example, combines engraving with etching, while an Italian known only as the Master of the Die cut Joseph Sold by his Brothers after Raphael in 1533. Much nineteenth-century steel and line engraving for books and magazines did not actually involve a burin at all.
Steel or steel-faced plates carried banknotes and dense commercial illustration. Gravers vary in shape; the burin’s steady, clean-edged line is distinctive, and angle tint tools curve for print textures. Face and heel geometry, diamond wheels for carbide, and mirror polishing enable bright cuts. Today’s hand engravers cut silver, nickel, steel and brass as well as copper.
Traditional hand-push engraving from the palm still thrives in bulino miniature work, alongside rotary and hammer-and-chisel systems. Pneumatic handpieces, driven by air and triggered by a foot or palm control, strike at up to 15,000 times a minute to spare the engraver’s hand, but they only add power and never steer the tool. Pantograph machines letter rings and plaques with less freehand finesse. Designs may be scribed, stippled, pencilled or transferred with chemicals and printouts before cutting, and lacquers protect steel that might rust, as on firearms.
Microscopic mastery makes counterfeiting engraved security designs nearly impossible, so modern notes, cheques and bonds stay engraved. The craft’s summit now lies on guns, jewellery, silverware and musical instruments, while goldsmiths and glass engravers keep the burin alive beside laser and photoengraving.
Source: Engraving
