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Counterfeit pen

phildonnia

Master Poster
phildonnia
Joined
Oct 20, 2001
Messages
2,439
Long, long ago (like 12 years maybe) I worked in retail, and the Powers that Be introduced us to the magic pen.

There was an undeniable implication that we could all relax, our counterfeit problems were over, that we could use the pen and disregard our our previous unreliable techniques.

As curious teenagers will, we immediately started marking everything in sight with this really cool device. Thus it immediately became apparent that it was unreliable. I remember a list I made:

McDonalds take-out bag: fake.
McDonalds napkin: genuine.
Register receipt: fake.
Recycled paper bag: genuine.
Price tag: fake.
Floor Manager's blouse: genuine.
... and so on.

Of course I checked all the currency too, since they were paying me to perform that sacred magical rite.

In five years, I saw two counterfeit bills (not counting the ones used in training). One was spotted by an associate because the color looked odd, the other caught my attention based entirely on the way it felt in my hand.

IMO, A far better defense against counterfeit currency is to become familiar with the look and feel of money.
 
Real American currency is printed in black and green on white paper containing tiny red and blue threads. That's not enough to verify that it's cash, but it's a start.

I met a fellow who swore up and down to having detected a bunch of counterfeit 50's with the counterfeit detector pen. His office is a little over a mile from the JREF. You don't suppose a certain somebody might, as a protest, get cash out of the bank in large bills, lay it out on the glass table in the center of the Isaac Assimov Memorial Library, spray-starch it, then deposit it back in the bank? (*)




(*) Natch!
 
I've gotten a starched bill once. It was genuine, but I had to get into a serious argument to avoid having it "confiscated". I said "good, call the police, we'll report this". The bill went to the bank, and was judged good. No idea who starched it.

That made me wonder about that pen, indeedy.
 
The pen certainly doesn't live up to being "the one tool you'll ever need to detect counterfeit money," but getting the patent on it revoked may be difficult. I haven't actually read the patent, but if the pen is doing what is claimed in the patent (iodine reacting with starch to show a possible counterfeit), then there is no basis for a re-examination of the patent and possible revocation. False advertisement is a different kettle of fish than wrongly granted patents. The big kicker is that American patent law does not require the patented item, whether it be a tangible object, a design, a method, a process, or whatever, to actually work as the inventors claim in marketing or be commercially viable. There are patents for methods of swinging on a swing and cleaning a room! And my bosses wonder why I don't want to do patent law.
 
DrMatt said:
Real American currency is printed in black and green on white paper containing tiny red and blue threads. That's not enough to verify that it's cash, but it's a start.
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I heard about this probably about thirty years ago. I immediately noticed that the paper on the workbook for one of my classes had tiny red and blue threads in the paper.

I have a more basic question. What is my motivation as a private citizen to learn all about how to detect conterfeit bills? All of the large bills I get, I get from a bank when I cash a check or withdraw some money.

Say I get a counterfeit $100 from the bank.

Say I detect it. I can turn it into the authorties, in which case

1) I'm out $100, because, right, like the bank is going to be so pleased that I called the cops on them, they'll just give me another one. And maybe they'll all say "Hip Hip Hoorah!" as well.

2) The cops and the FBI will probably just sit around with their thumbs up their butts, except that

3) They'll start a file on me, because the first rule of copdom is that it is generally easier to make a problem go away by harassing the victim, because victims are less dangerous.

On the other hand, say I don't detect it, and somebody detects it as counterfeit, the prosecutor will say that it was deliberate because I should have known that it was counterfeit. And because I don't have tens of thousands of dollars for a legal defense, and if I did it would come from the same damn bank anyway, I'll go to prison and get anally raped, and you all and Randi can read about it in the paper and chuckle about how another evil conterfeiter got caught. No, maybe some of you will defend me, but then others will pile on and say, "Hey! We don't know all the circumstances! You're not skeptical enough!"

So, as they say in the acting biz, what's my motivation? I can see a reason for banks and vendors and border inspectors to try to detect counterfeit, but why private citizens? Is there, like, a Good Samaritan law that protects me in instances like this?
 
epepke said:
I heard about this probably about thirty years ago. I immediately noticed that the paper on the workbook for one of my classes had tiny red and blue threads in the paper.

I have a more basic question. What is my motivation as a private citizen to learn all about how to detect conterfeit bills? All of the large bills I get, I get from a bank when I cash a check or withdraw some money.

Say I get a counterfeit $100 from the bank.

Say I detect it. I can turn it into the authorties, in which case

1) I'm out $100, because, right, like the bank is going to be so pleased that I called the cops on them, they'll just give me another one. And maybe they'll all say "Hip Hip Hoorah!" as well.

2) The cops and the FBI will probably just sit around with their thumbs up their butts, except that

3) They'll start a file on me, because the first rule of copdom is that it is generally easier to make a problem go away by harassing the victim, because victims are less dangerous.

On the other hand, say I don't detect it, and somebody detects it as counterfeit, the prosecutor will say that it was deliberate because I should have known that it was counterfeit. And because I don't have tens of thousands of dollars for a legal defense, and if I did it would come from the same damn bank anyway, I'll go to prison and get anally raped, and you all and Randi can read about it in the paper and chuckle about how another evil conterfeiter got caught. No, maybe some of you will defend me, but then others will pile on and say, "Hey! We don't know all the circumstances! You're not skeptical enough!"

So, as they say in the acting biz, what's my motivation? I can see a reason for banks and vendors and border inspectors to try to detect counterfeit, but why private citizens? Is there, like, a Good Samaritan law that protects me in instances like this?
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You examine the bills at the point you receive them... not at the point when you spend them !
 
teddygrahams said:
You examine the bills at the point you receive them... not at the point when you spend them !
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Which pretty much means that I have to do all the tests for ten $100 bills while I'm at the teller in a bank. Which means I have to carry a magnifying glass (my eyes are about four years too old to read microprinting), an ultraviolet light (battery-powered), and a grid dip meter to read the metallic strip. And I probably have to make arrangements with the bank ahead of time so some security guard doesn't shoot me for taking this equipment out. Because I've gotta be 100% right or I'm screwed.
 
epepke said:
Which pretty much means that I have to do all the tests for ten $100 bills while I'm at the teller in a bank. Which means I have to carry a magnifying glass (my eyes are about four years too old to read microprinting), an ultraviolet light (battery-powered), and a grid dip meter to read the metallic strip. And I probably have to make arrangements with the bank ahead of time so some security guard doesn't shoot me for taking this equipment out. Because I've gotta be 100% right or I'm screwed.
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What the heck do you need this much cash at once for? I get all my cash in twenties, and use my credit card for anything over about $20. I can't think of any reason I would need to carry $1000 in hundreds.
 
Thanz said:
What the heck do you need this much cash at once for? I get all my cash in twenties, and use my credit card for anything over about $20. I can't think of any reason I would need to carry $1000 in hundreds.
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I'm a consultant/contractor. I get paid in a lump sum, which is seldom less than $1000. When it's good, it's good, but I'm often in a position where I get a check from a local bank, and I need cash. Once I had to cash a check for more than $4000 because the company was going bankrupt, and I wouldn't have gotten my pay otherwise. I suppose I could get bank checks and wait, but when you're a consultant/contractor, the few dollars spent on a bank check resonates with a lot of times when a can of Beanie-Weenie was an extravagance.

I haven't had a credit card for five years, because nobody wants to give you a credit card if you're not a full salaried employee. I do have one now, but there were a couple of times in my life when I was just dead broke, and a 24-hour difference between cashing the check would have meant the difference between eating and not.
 
I've worked in retail almost my entire adult life (more than 10 years), and never accepted a counterfeit bill. I've turned a few down, but as far as I know hve never accepted one.

The easiest way to check a bill is to hold it to a light source, and check the watermark. Unless their professional counterfeiters, they probably didn't add the watermark. If it's an older bill look for the strip on the left side of the front.
 
I've also worked in retail and have never used one of those pen. I know enough little things to look for.

The red and blue fibers have already been mentioned. That's one of the easiest, but in an old rumpled bill, it's harder to spot. You can also rub the bill on a piece of paper. The ink should smudge. Not a great test, but it's one of them.

$1 bills have a tiny spider in the upper right hand corner.
New $5 bills have "The United States of America" in tiny print on either side of Lincoln's name. Along the edges, in the little loop is also printed "five dollars" and the names of several states are on the back, along the Lincoln Memorial.
I'm pretty sure the new $10s are much the same as the $5s, and old new $20s (How dumb does that sound?) have "The United States of America" twice in a row on either side of Jackson's name.

This is aside from the watermarks.

If you have a display case with a glass top, you can use that to easily check for a watermark, if you angle the bill right. I've surprised a few people who asked why I wasn't checking for the watermark. Once I showed them, they thought that was a neat trick. The other upside to that is that the appearance of simply taking the bill gives your regulars a feeling of trust.

I know there's a few other tricks to spotting legit bills, but I can't remember them off the top of my head. I'm sure if you put me back into retail, it'd come back within about five shifts though.

Of course if you put me back into retail, I'd have put you back into your mother's womb, so let's not test my hypothesis.
 
I haven't had a credit card for five years, because nobody wants to give you a credit card if you're not a full salaried employee.
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As someone who was very recently a college student, I'd just like to say that I only wish that were true. I'd have no junk mail if that was the case....
 
I've always thought the way cashiers checked currency with those little magic pens amusing.

Another fast way to check currency is the magnetic properties of the Iron oxide rich ink. Just dangle it from one end and it will be attracted to a strong magnet. If you stick a small magnet nearby the register, you have a fast way to check it that is likely better than the Iodine pens and you don't have to see as well. Don't know why the treasury doesn't list it as one of the ways of checking currency though the "feel" of the raised ink and paper is pretty good too.

It should be possible to use digital signing techniques to "Stamp" currency with a digital signature. If each bill was serialized counterfeits could be detected by databasing and looking for collisions. This would work well in central banks that processed large numbers of bills.
 
One of the local TV stations ran a story on counterfiet money as part of their pre-Christmas scare mongering...
In the segment, a large wad of counterfiet bills taken from circulation was held up and flipped...you could see the mark from those pens on several of the bills in the pile.
:o
 
I have to say that of all the currencies I've encountered, the American bills look as though they would be the simplest to counterfeit.
 
It is apparently so, Chris, since the American dollar IS the counterfeit currency of the underworld. Don't think the US Government doesn't know or care, they have been trying quite a bit to try and stop the ease of counterfeit (or make it easier to tell the difference between real and fake bills, at least). That's why we have the brand new $20s and soon to be released brand new $50s and $100s. The EU has made a move to prevent the euro from being easily counterfeited: RFID chips in the bills. I've heard talk about metal strips and now possibly RFID chips in US bills that have been found by cooking the money in microwaves. I don't know how true this is; if someone has more info I would appreciate it.
 
marting said:
Another fast way to check currency is the magnetic properties of the Iron oxide rich ink. Just dangle it from one end and it will be attracted to a strong magnet.
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I'm afraid to say I'm very dubious about this. Anyone have a dollar to hand who can give it a go and let me know?
 
Matabiri said:
I'm afraid to say I'm very dubious about this. Anyone have a dollar to hand who can give it a go and let me know?
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In the interests of "just in case", I found a dollar and waved a magnet about. No effect, as I thought. That's why no-one tries to use magnets to test currency.
 
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