1996 $100 Inverted Watermark

The supernotes were printed with real plates, on real paper, and real ink. They can not be distinguished from the legitimate notes. The feds don't like to talk about them. Next time you have a stack of hundreds, you will probably see a lot of 1996 AB prefix that are in good condition considering they are almost 20 years old. That's been my observation anyway. If my memory is correct, I think I read that Russian, and UK banks laundered them through the black market.

Good question. But it is a tough one to answer.

I did a bit of web research on these notes and there is a lot of information available. I'll give sources at the end of this reply. It seems that Iran was initially blamed, with Syria being a possible culprit, but for quite some time the evidence has pointed to North Korea. There wasn't one set of plates used, but they have changed plates to keep up with emerging technology to the bill security features. What's strange is that the paper is an exact copy of what the US uses, but they aren't "washed" smaller denominations, but rather new paper. What's odd is that the paper requires extremely expensive technology to produce and it seems to not make sense to authorities that the bills aren't produced in enough quantity to pay for the technology used to make them. It's not just plates either, but they have duplicated all the security features including color changing inks (depending on viewing angles). I didn't find references to genuine plates being scrapped without being defaced, but since a large number of plate changes to accommodate changes in genuine bills, it seems to me that whoever is doing this is engraving their own plates. You can search for more online, but there's a lot of information at these two sites:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superdollar
http://www.globalresearch.ca/north-...-enigma/8919

Here is the book you want for the diagnostics on the Super Notes as they existed in 2007.

Lyn Knight has two in their upcoming sale

A VF they list with an estimate of $200 to $400 however bidding is currently at $120.

A CU they list with an estimate of $300 to $600 bidding is at $180 currently.

An AU-53 example sold last month at Heritage for $211.50
to the CCF and hope this information helps

I've looked this up and the UsA sent the plates and a printing press to Iran in the 90s. Instead of transporting money to Iran and risk it "disappearing", Iran could now send us oil, and print the money owed. Wow