How to Detect Paper Money Counterfeits

Detecting counterfeit notes is not as difficult or as mysterious a business as many presume. Also, many of the methods used by merchants are so inefficient as to be of no value.  First it must be realized that, almost since the beginning, U.S. paper money has been printed not on paper but on cloth. It is part cotton and part linen with some silk. The silk is in the form of minute red and blue threads which dive in and out of the surface of the note. A color copier may be able to reproduce the colors of these tiny threads, but it cannot reproduce the texture of them entering and leaving the surf ace of the note. Another key to detecting counterfeits is crispness of the ink in the design. Images and lines should be sharp and distinct.

Most counterfeit bills passed in circulation are accepted not because the counterfeits are deceptive, but because little or no effort is put into determining if they are real at all. In recent years, Federal Reserve Notes have incorporated many new counterfeit-detection devices. These are fully described in that section. Real notes have been used occasionally to create counterfeits. A counterfeiter will take the value numbers from the corners of a note and glue them to a note of a lower face value. Such notes will often feel too thick or irregular at the corners. More importantly, such a criminal is presuming the recipients will pay virtually no attention to the notes they are accepting. Such counterfeits can be detected by even a brief comparison with a real note.

Certain practices are designed to take an authentic note and make it appear to be in a better grade of preservation than it is. These include ironing a note to make it look less worn, and expertly gluing tears. Light will pass through a glued repair differently than through undamaged currency. When choosing a dealer in rare currency, make sure they have the skills to know if a note is real, and the ethics to accept it back if it is not. There are specialized organizations that enforce codes of ethics. Two of the largest are the International Banknote Society (IBNS) and the Professional Currency Dealers Association (PCDA). These insignia in advertising indicate that the dealer is a member.