[hijack]There was an article in the New York Times over the summer about how the North Korean government is going to great lengths to make high-quality counterfeit American money. For example, one of the best security measures on a dollar bill is the color-shifting ink on the number in the lower right-hand corner of the back. On an American note, the color shifts from green to black. Now the ink is made only by one company in Switzerland, which sells it only to governments, and the US government has an exclusive contract on the green-to-black ink. So the North Korean government bought green-to-magenta ink even though no one is ever going to counterfeit a North Korean note, and the stuff is really expensive. Plus magenta is the closest color to black (and the North Koreans have even fiddled with the ink to make it look even blacker).[/hijack]
Normally that is right. That situation seems unusual.
In the summer of 1994 I worked as a bank teller for a very large multinational bank in NYC. One day this sweet lil ol’ lady came in and presented me with the fakest-looking $20 I’d ever seen. The ink was literally grass green. Without saying anything to her I excused myself and called the Secret Service (this was our procedure on any suspected forgeries of ny value). I gave them some information about the bill (year, serial #, signatory, and a description) and they declared it genuine!
Apparently it was printed during the Depression using a less-expensive ink and paper process. I can only assume this lady had had it under her mattress since 1930.
During your work as a bank teller, if you came across a coin or bill that’s worth more than face value, were you allowed to exchange it and keep it yourself?
I worked for a while in college at a convenience store. After the first week, I bought a rare US coins and bills guide and regularly swapped out the rares from the non-rare for face value. Then I sold the rare ones to dealers.
It generally accounted for several hundred extra dollars for me a month. Mostly because the convenience store was in a high-population area with a really really mixed bag of customers. I had several customers who regularly brought in things like half-cents, half-dimes and buffalo nickles. One lady came in every week for a lottery ticket and paid with Morgan dollars. She must have had a huge stockpile of the things. After a couple of times, I told her that she could probably sell the coins for more than a buck each to a dealer but she just called me a nice girl and kept doing it.
I could probably have started a respectable collection, but I wasn’t that interested in coins and I was interested in having food that wasn’t Top Ramen, so to the dealer I went once a week. After I left the job, apparently the dealer guy went to the person who replaced me and gave him a copy of the same guide I’d been using.
I have no idea what the owner of the convenience store thought of all this, since I didn’t consult him. He was paying me minimum wage to work the graveyard shift at a Stop’N’Rob with security cameras that were not only broken, but had “out of order” signs on them (until I took them off every night when I started my shift). I assume he didn’t much care - since he handled the cash during the day. I viewed it as a perk. There were a number of months where I made more from the coin selling than I did in wages.
This never came up (I don’t know much about rare coins/bills other than obvious misprints) but I imagine it would be fine, as long as you replaced it (immediately! at that very moment!) with currency of equal face value. Chase Manhattan isn’t intersted in a penny worth $20. They would just circulate it, I’m sure. Forgeries, however, must be surrendered.
I could be wrong, but as it was never mentioned as a Thing We Should Never Do during training – a six-week, fulltime, paid training course with a final exam you had to pass to be hired – I don’t think they must have cared about it too much.
You’re right - they were introduced in 1993, at least on the five - before the redesign.
Joe
On notes before, say 1988, look at the BACK - the ink is shockingly brighter than on newer notes. I guess that this is why.
Joe
Perhaps the tellers I deal with are not very observant, but I don’t think they necessarily know what’s valuable or not. I was doing banking for work once, and in a stack of bills, I saw an old-looking hundred, and asked the teller what year it was. She had to consult with two other tellers before I told her where the date was on the bill. Kinda disconcerting…
Last month, while cashiering, a guy came in and paid for cigarettes with, among others, these coins :
1961 dime (silver, not great shape)
1901 dime (bad)
1928 Buffalo nickel (bad)
1964 Kennedy half (not bad)
1912 Nicken (bad)
1930 Quarter
1964 Quarter (near mint)
1893 Quarter (OK)
1899 Half (Not great)
1944 Half (not great)
The most valuable of these is worth about 30 bucks in its condition, IIRC.
Joe
Hmm…
The lines on this tenner are crooked!! :dubious:
That sounds like a guy who just robbed a coin collection, but didn’t know what everything is worth.
We get fake pound coins a lot*, but unless they’ve taken a bit of a beating they only become apparent when they’re in the drawer with the other coins (they’re more of a yellowy colour than real pound coins, and somewhat similar to 24-carat gold). If I find one in the drawer I give it as change to people who were rude to me, and if I manage to catch one before it’s tendered I ask for real coins. I’m not arguing with a slack-jawed chav over that amount of money… or about the drinks and sandwiches they keep nicking from the cabinets.
*by which I mean a couple a week.
If you still have this super tender, I’m sure I’m not the only one who would like to see a picture.
I thought of that, but most of the coins were worth less than a buck each - worn nearly smooth. You may be right, though.
Joe
I was working in a health food store in high school. One day a couple of guys from the Secret Service came in and asked me if I had any unusual visitors…I’d accepted a fake $20.00
Are these legal? I’m not sure the Treasury Department distributes bills via eBay.
A few years ago I was the manager of a skating rink, which meant I made up deposits and took them to the bank.
(The bank was the one in North Hollywood, the one with the machine gunners during a rpbbery)
The teller caught a counterfiet 20 in the deposit and pointed it out to me. He said he had to keep it, but wrote me out a receipt so my deposit would balance.
Nice guy!
All it is is a bill with a sticker over the portrait…
Joe
That’s it? :o I was imagining something more complex, involving printers and large vats of green ink and whatnot. :smack: