My wife has an accounting job in a grocery store and the bank sent this note back to her and said it was fake. When I first looked at it I agreed but after a little reasearch I'm just not sure. The fact that there was no vertical security strip or watermark on the notes in 1981 makes it harder for me. The bill has a few of the blue and red security threads but without a loupe I can't tell if they are imbedded or printed on the paper. The first giveaway was the fact that some ink has been transfered when the bill was folded. the images appear to be pretty crisp, but I'm just not sure. Does anybody have more things for me to look for on this bill or can you tell from the images?
Not sure, but they did. The more I look, I think it's authentic but I would like some more thoughts from those on this forum that are far more knowledgeable than me.
The person at the bank was a fool to send back a known counterfeit, but I don't think it is, neither should the bill have a vertical security strip or watermark on the note in Series 1981 because these didn't come about until after the revised designs and security features if the Series 1996 and Series 2004 notes. If it were a counterfeit the bank should have sent it to the Fed or called a local Secret Service office. The blue and red fibers are correct and have been present in bank note paper since colonial issues. Forgot to add that the transferred ink is not uncommon, but in this case some agent other than pressure when the ink was wet after printing, probably was the cause.
One would need to look at it with a high level of magnification..there are great differences in inkjet -vs- current BEP printing methods. This would be 1 way to tell for sure. RB
Thanks for the help guys. I might mention that we have had tons of rain and nasty humidity lately so wet/sweaty bills have been very common this summer.
Still, the bank itself should have such abilities to check the note out with proper magnification (and lamps for examination with the newer notes), or at least a branch they could turn to for verification. For the bank to return the note to its source seems to break with logical policy in a matter of such potential severity.
That's what I wondered about banks....they don't check the notes when you deposit them or anything, at least i've never seen a teller take a counterfeit marker and check every note i'm depositing or something....when do they do that? At the end of the day? and wouldn't they be required to pass on a suspected or known counterfeit note on to the secret service? Seems sketchy that they were just like "oh, here, we can't take this one, it's fake." right?
Yea, and they didn't use a marker because they thought the bill was to old. As far as I know the paper hasn't changed in recent memory so the marker test should still work shoudn't it? ( I don't think they followed those guide lines Krispy!!)
The paper's recipe is a closely guarded state secret. We wouldn't know if they made a change unless it was significant or announced. Crane Currency, Crane & Co. I don't know which era of notes the pens work on or do not work on, be careful as you may mark a note that the pens are useless on. Do a Google search to see if you can dig up which notes they work on. I believe improper use on the wrong type of note with the wrong pen type, will mark the bill and not disappear. Counterfeit Banknote Detection Pen [Wikipedia.org]
I wish I had this to read and post in a business I had years ago. I was so naive that when a Bank Of America (business deposit) teller told me I was trying to deposit a counterfit $ 20.00 bill, and that the bank would have to confisticate it and send it in to the FBI. I did get a reciept but I was out $ 20.00 bucks and never heard a thing about it since.
the head bank teller and the fbi agent said they couldn't give back the note, when i turned in a fake one. i asked because i wanted one! i used to make big deposits twice a day at my work and the teller noticed a fake $10. i had to put my name and phone number on it, then the FBI came and talked to me.
At a quick glance it looks authentic, Most counterfeits at least the ones ive come across are Very lightly inked and are pretty obvious this one on the other hand??
The counterfeit-detecting pens should "work" on notes back to Series 1957, when the dry-intaglio printing process was introduced. Before that, the notes were printed on dampened paper, and the sizing used in that process will cause the pens to declare them counterfeit. Incidentally, a modern note that's been through a laundry cycle with starch will also test as counterfeit, for the same reason. And a counterfeit that's printed on good cotton bond paper may well test as genuine, since that paper won't contain the woodpulp starches that the pens are designed to detect. In general, it's not a good idea to rely on those pens! As for the original poster's note--based on the images posted, I'd say it's more likely to be a genuine note that's had a rough life. Ink transfer similar to this is fairly common on notes that have been folded and stored that way for a long time. And while I'm not going to suggest that anybody ought to trust my opinion more than that of someone who actually had the note in hand, I'm also not going to suggest that the average bank teller really knows very much about counterfeit detection....
Thanks Numbers! That is exactly the kind of information that I was curious about regarding the pens that may affect or render inconclusive the pen test. I have also just posted an informational thread with links to a NEW B.E.P. Security Features and Counterfeit Detection video that may be of interest to this thread, check it out: New Security Features Video from the B.E.P. on the NEW $100 Notes
