I just saw the news about the new twenty dollar (US) bills.
http://a799.g.akamai.net/3/799/388/3d7935a3e46cb6/www.msnbc.com/news/2007375.jpg
The one question I haven’t seen answered about how this stops counterfeiting is this: If the old twenties are still being accepted as legal tender - as, of course, they have to be - why wouldn’t counterfeiters just keep printing the old style bills?
How many orignal-style 20’s do you see today? Bills only last a short time in circulation, so something like a crisp old-style bill will get attention very quickly. I assume you’d want counterfeit bills to blend in with the majority of bills, not stand out. In a very short time, old-style bills will stand out, get more attention when passed, and be spotted.
All a counterfeiter would need to do is “age” the old-style 20. Someone with the wherewithal to put together a fake bill that will pass a cursory inspection probably has the smarts to toss the newly-printed fakes in a washing machine or crumple them up or whatever to wear them. Putting out new bills without removing the old bills from circulation and declaring them invalid after a certain date was foolish.
Yep, when the bill has “twnty dollars” written on it, chances are that it’s counterfeit.
Aye wish eyed sed that.
After five years, even an aged old style $20 will start to get more attention, if just because they won’t be as common. We do very little cash in my office, but I can’t recall the last old style $50 or $100 we got, and it’s been several weeks since I last saw and old style $10 or $20. Strangly, I seem to see a lot more old style $5’s. Not sure what that means.
But thanks to a question in another thread, I’m going to look into getting a small blacklight to check the security threads for color. Or just a backlight to see the watermark. 
Maybe it’s just because they were the last to be introduced?
One of my employees took in a fake $20 this past weekend. It was ‘stone-washed’ to give it that worn look that lends a legitemite “air and feel” to the phoney bill.
The offender that passed the bill has already made restitution to me (accompanied by a law officer). I asked him how he made the bills. On his home computer, using the same printer that I have at home!
Gosh, it’s a small world. Damn!
Here in Canada, they change the bill design every fifteen years or so, and having worked as a cashier in the past, I can attest that any old-style bills tend to stick out like sore thumbs after a while.
They become so rare that it is unusual to see them; and when you do, you tend to give them an extra-close look. If the bill is especially worn, you wonder why the bank hasn’t yet removed it from circulation (as happens with all bills); if it is fairly new and crisp, it is automatically suspect. That’s not to say that new and crisp old-style bills aren’t available–you can get them in collector’s shops and such. But unless somebody is spending their currency collection, you also wonder where the person got an old-style bill when they’re usually unavailable from banks, ATMs, stores, and such.
In short, if a counterfeiter produced old-style bills and tried to pass them when everything out there is in the new-style, their rarity would probably make them subject to closer scrutiny than a counterfeit new-style bill.
I assume you don’t just mean a local cop, but an FBI or Secret Service agent? No matter how small-time, counterfeiting is a major felony (and a federal one at that!)
Just the other day I gave the girl in the Wendy’s drive-thru an old style $20 and she gave it quite a gander, then showed it to her manager.
This sort of thing is one reason to always use those counterfeit detection pens. It’s a lot harder to come up with something that won’t show the wrong color than it is to make a photocopy. Actually, the only piece of paper I’ve not seen react to the pen was the newspaper.
When I first glanced at this thread I was so mad. I thought it said Counterfeit TWINKIES. Twenties I can live with, but DON’T EVER MESS WITH A TWINKIE
Counterfeit 20s-style death rays?
I dunno. In general I agree with what has been said, but I can see certain caveats.
I keep a modest cache of $20s and $100s for emergencies. In the past 10 years, maybe half of them have become new style as they were used for unplanned pizza/chinese food deliveries, an occassional impromptu gift or short-term loan to family or friends, etc.
‘Cash emergencies’ are increasingly rare now. Grocery stores and almost everyone else will take credit/debit cards, 24-hour services are more common, and my finances have gotten stabler as my career advanced - so the turnover rate is pretty low. I think the last time I touched the stash was on Christmas, for a delivery from a certain restaurant that wouldn’t take a card for deliveries.
I rarely touch my stash of $100s at all. Though my grocery trips often top $100, they are still a fairly uncommon denomination for most other casual cash transactions - or maybe that’s just my impression.
About 10 years ago, several of my friends used to enjoy roadtrips to a then-new casino in a neighboring state, and I’ve had a pile of $100s since then - my initial 'weekend stake, multiplied over many weekends (I only enjoy gambling as a mathematical challenge, so I have no problem walking away when I’m ahead; it’s more fun to watch your friends play, with winnings in your pockets, than to play ‘catch-up’ an hour later when you’re behind) Gambling is a surprisingly large, cash-intensive, sector of the entertainment industry now, so I bet there are lots of people with stashes like mine. back then, it was just about the only time I used $100s.
Cash in active circulation might be 90% or more of the bills issued, but over time, a sizeable percentage of bills get stuck in backwater eddies and sumps in the cash flow - like my stash. These are less sizeable than they once were, due to the increase and ubiquity of financial services (ATM and credit cards) and you might rarely see them - but let times get tough [which is precisely when people might be tempted to do some amateur counterfeiting] and those emergency stashes will start flooding back, at least temporarily. After a natural disaster or terrorist attack (like the WTC), the banking channels may be tied up or overloaded, and the immediate need for emergency purchases will flood the stores with old bills and quickly kill the suspicions of the now-numb (by the disaster and the flood of old bills) store clerks.
(It occurs to me that a canny crook might keep a stock of counterfeit ;old bills’ for just such n opportunity. Not all crooks are dumb)
[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by Hail Ants *
**I assume you don’t just mean a local cop, but an FBI or Secret Service agent? No matter how small-time, counterfeiting is a major felony (and a federal one at that!)
My dear Sir Hail Ants:
It was a local sheriff-type person that brought the perp in. The “perp” was an insignificant pissant that printed the twenties (or is it twnties?) on his home computer, using an HP 2200psc. The very same all-in-one machine I own.
Silly me, I’ve been using my machine to make copies, scan thingy-a-mabobies and such. I never realised I could use my HP2200psc to reproduce twenty dollar bills! To think, I too could spend time in the hoose-gow over a wild get-rich-quick-scheme to print $20 bills for profit and fun.
I mean really, how many of us folks here would risk a Federal Penalty, a felony and jail time for a measly $20 bucks?
Not me!
I think some of these posts are missing the point. Although new anti-counterfeit measures also make it more difficult for the guy using the color printer, the real target are those who make counterfeits by the literal millions.
Counterfeiting has long been a source of money for mobs of various nationalities, drug-runners, and organized groups that can use the kind of printing presses that only governments can get their hands on.
A few old bills would do these groups little good. They’re out there with truckloads of crisp new bills.
I couldn’t find any books on the modern counterfeiting networks on Amazon or in my library database. Here’s a subject that’s crying out for one.
Oh dear. There was supposed to be a beautiful QUOTE in that last post. I shall blame it on my cats, as they were reading and responding to the “let your pet tell us what a real Ass-munch you really are” thread.
My apologies to any humans that may have been offended.
Something else occurred to me, but I realize this is highly unlikely. If counterfeiting of the current bills got to be a really big problem, then merchants themselves could refuse to accept 1990s-style “Twenties” without hurting their business much.
AAAAAAGH
bangs head on desk
WACK-WACK-WACK-WACK
This “bangs head on desk” catchphrase is getting a bit old, Seven, don’t ya think?
:d&r: