1
The American Bank Note Company
picture-engraving department was long
considered the best in the world. At American Bank Note the meticulous, demanding art of picture engraving involved a
10-year apprenticeship, and good art ability was a requirement for the apprenticeship. Kenneth Guy (Figure 1) applied and
was accepted for such a position in 1943.
At that time the department had lost
some key people, and the world’s leading
producer of bank notes, stock certificates,
bonds and stamps needed to start training additional picture engravers. William
Ford, head of the department, was an
outstanding portrait and picture engraver,
trained by Robert Savage, the finest bank
note picture engraver of the 20th century. Ken Guy had only completed 13
months of his apprenticeship when World
War II intervened. After Army service, he
was finally able to resume his training at
American Bank Note in January 1946.
Ken Guy’s training had an unusual
aspect. Ford, who trained the postwar generation of picture engravers at ABN, was
a left-handed man who had been forced
to learn engraving with his right hand.
Ken Guy was also left-handed, and Ford
allowed him to engrave with his left hand,
making Guy possibly the first left-handed
picture engraver at American Bank Note.
Picture engraving in the US and English
tradition involves both “cutting” (using
By Mark D. Tomasko
Ken Guy
a graver, or burin, to cut dots and lines
directly into the steel) and etching (a process of applying a transparent ground to a
die, then using an etching point to make the
dots and lines of the design in the ground,
and then putting acid onto the die, to eat
into the steel where it has been exposed by
the etching point). Human fleshwork and
drapery (clothing) are cut, and everything
else is etched — scenery, buildings, animals,
trains, etc. The top of the craft is human
portraits, as they are the most difficult part
of bank note engraving. In the postwar era
the picture engravers were taught to do
both etching and cutting (in earlier years
1 Kenneth Guy at his desk, early 1980s.
2 Haitian special-delivery stamp, 1953. Notice
the motorcyclists in front of the building.
34 Financial History | Spring/Summer 2011 | www.MoAF.org
some engravers did only etching, and others, primarily cutting). With fewer people
in the picture-engraving department in the
postwar years, it was more important t ]