While I marked a few large bills today operating the cash register, I noticed on the pen "works on most bills 1959 and newer". What change happened in 1959?
Well there are no notes dated 1959, but the 1957 Silver certificates are the first notes printed on the new dry paper as opposed to the previous wet paper printing method. The first United States(Legal Tender or Red Seal) notes were printed on the dry paper with the Series 1963 notes and the same with the Federal Reserve Notes. But there was still quite a bit of wet process paper left over - which is why the Series 1950-D, and Series 1950-E notes were printed into ca. 1965-6.
Very interesting! Btw, Detecto...you get a lot of pre-1963 notes crossing the counter? Just curious...'cuz I may ask you to hook me up with a job!
Not likely where he lives, but where I live - in an area with mostly retired folks, it is a bit more common. Can't complain though, my bank's other older customers have been vedy vedy good to me. My oldest recent acquisition is a Series 1928-A $20 that I got about three weeks ago.
Ok, but why does the pen say it works on the newer notes, and not the older ones? Did the older ones use starch? A lady did come in yesterday and paid with two 1977 20 dollar notes, but they were ratty. I have a small pile of "old change" that I have been switching out my coins for, it consists of 40's and 50's nickels, and wheat pennies.
My understanding is that the counterfeit detecting pens react to the sizing that was used on wet printed notes.
The pens react to starch, which is a poor way to detect counterfeits. Many cashiers come to rely on the pens and don't scrutinize other security features. Because it's so simple to defeat a pen, people will actually pass counterfeit notes to places that use it. For example a $5 bleached and reprinted as a $20 is a very common tactic and the pen will not alert you to it. Here's an interest article: http://calladus.blogspot.com/2006/09/testing-counterfeit-money-detector-pen.html Turns out the pens show coffee filters to be real money.
I had an experience with a counterfeit $100 back in the fall of 2008 - I got it in the bank and noticed it was just a bit "off" handing it back to the teller and she insisted it was good. She slashed at it with that ridiculous pen and of course it turned out what she thought to be good because it was a bleached and overprinted $5 from the previous series that was not colourized and had Lincoln in the watermark. She tried to cover herself because passing a counterfeit as a bank teller is a serious offence - but I know the branch manager and she stepped in and took the $100 back. Fortunately that teller is still there, but I believe she checks her bills a lot more closely now. Another tactic that forgers use is to spray hairspray on forged bills to thwart that stupid pen.
Does your employer train you to use the pen, for instance mostly with $20 bills etc? I ask because there are certain retailers that have their employees checking all bills that are $20 and higher. Which begs the question - are there possibly more counterfeits out there than the Fed wants us to know about? I guess I have always been led to believe that counterfeits are very rare - but see above I got one back in 2008 and there were a rash of the bleached $5 bills being printed over as $100 bills.
There is a burger place that I go to often, they hold all bills but singles up to the light. No pens. There is a quicky mart I stopped at the other day. He had a "reader" that checked the $20 I gave him. I assume it works for other denominations as well.
Ultraviolet light is good. K-Mart is one of the cheapest ran stores, worse than wal-mart. While the CEO Eddie Lampert has mansions, jets, etc, he only spends 1% on store repair and upgrades. The industry average is 4-5%. Our registers are from 1992, and barely work, they freeze up often. We have 7 lanes, only 3 function, the others have bad UPC scanners or card terminals. I have no idea what Black Friday is going to be like. Our sears still use cash registers than run DOS. The air is set at 75 by corporate, but we only have 1 functioning HVAC unit, it's usually 80 or above in the store. We have had people complain, and some leave, due to the heat and humidity. The stores are closing left and right, and the CEO is worthless. Thing is, K-Mart OWNS Sears. Most people get that reversed, but it's true. He also outsourced a bunch of Craftsman tools to China and Taiwan, after being made in USA for almost a century. He is going to let Sears Holdings (Sears, K-Mart, Land's End) sink into the ground, as stores continue to close. It's a sad story, but it's true. K-Mart and Sears both are terrific stores, but he won't get off his financial ass and fix them.
Yeah Tim you really backed me into a corner - cannot do anything but agree with you about the slow miserable demise of what used to be a retailer, ie Sears, that stood for quality, value, etc. Now they are a miserable shell of what they used to be. I have been in a store near me where they indeed had the thermostat set above 80', it was humid and the lights were dimmed as a cost saving measure. The stores are looking awfully 1970s - and their registers are indeed 1990s tech. Grin, bear it, enjoy your customers, collect what you can on the side - and be thankful for the valuable learning experience. K-Sears will not be around in the next five years - no doubt the corporation will go bankrupt like K-Mart did twice back in the 1990s. But this next time I don't think there will be a life preserver thrown to them.
