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 Replies: 21 / Views: 3,923 |
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Pillar of the Community
United States
1227 Posts |
Old-currency searchers: Someone tried to pass my coworker a fake $10 the other night. The catch? It was FROM 1950. She called me out of the back room and told him I collect old currency and could validate the bill, and he quickly became uneasy and pulled out a card. I asked to see it anyway out of curiosity. I don't know much about minor diagnostics on old bills, but here is what I noticed:
--bill felt "too thin" and did not have the right consistency paper
--bill was WHITE. If it's 60 years old, I don't care how out of circulation it's been, it's not going to be a crisp green-black and white. Paper ages.
--Hamilton's jacket was not raised and although I felt other areas of the bill as well, I could not detect intaglio printing.
--the bill DID contain the phrase "will pay to the bearer on demand." I suspect this is a very good, very modern photocopy.
--the guy trying to pass it claimed he thought it was "a new design" and "didn't know it was old" in spite of the date, old design, and--most damningly, to me--the fact that he'd looked for a security strip (or so he said) but didn't see one. That should ring alarm bells to ANYONE who doesn't know anything about old currency.
Here is my theory: The $10 bill is the most counterfeited (This is a fact I know from work). Many clerks are young and will have never encountered old bills, but--in this area, at least--will accept them if you can easily say "oh, yeah, just got that from the bank. It's older'n me! Crazy, huh?" I suspect someone is faking OLD bills with the theory that they have fewer security markings and will be easier to pass.
BE ON YOUR GUARD!!
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Valued Member
United States
212 Posts |
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Valued Member
United States
80 Posts |
Did you turn it in to the authorities? The Secret Service are the people who really should know about this.
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Bedrock of the Community
United States
12437 Posts |
Quote:
Paper ages.
US currency is composed of cotton and linen, not wood pulp paper. |
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Pillar of the Community
United States
1721 Posts |
The older bills have the 'Big E.'
In case you didn't get it, that's an old Levis reference.
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Valued Member
Canada
156 Posts |
Sounds to me like this was done up on the printer this guy has in his basement. Many counterfeit notes today are made with your average printer.
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Pillar of the Community
United States
814 Posts |
Thanks for the heads up ninamason.
Are there any other security features on the older bills? I know the.raised.printing and the blue and red fibers were used back then. Security strips, microprinting, watermarks is all post 1996.
Edited by GoldenChest
12/19/2012 6:44 pm
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Pillar of the Community
United States
652 Posts |
Quote:
US currency is composed of cotton and linen, not wood pulp paper. And your point is? Wood pulp was never mentioned by the OP that I can see. And a cotton or cotton/linen blend of fibers is used in many grades of paper - not just currency, and these are considered a grade of paper. And cotton/linen does age. Cotton and wood pulp are both cellulose based and can yellow with age and chemical and light exposure. I'm relying here on 30+ years of paper industry experience, as well as customer service work for Crane Paper (former suppliers of all US currency paper). |
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Pillar of the Community
979 Posts |
sorry goldenchest you are wrong about one thing security strips and micro printing where first put in bills for the 1990 series. I have a 1990 series $100 dollar bill and it has both the security strip and micro printing on it.
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Pillar of the Community
979 Posts |
hey OP if paper money ages and it never is crisp and white how come there are so many graded 67-69 paper money from 1881 series that are crisp well over 60 years old and are beautifully white?
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Pillar of the Community
Canada
1411 Posts |
They aren't paper... They are a blend of cotton, ragpaper and something else. Thats how  |
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Valued Member
United States
360 Posts |
ckrakowski - They must have been preserved or never used. That is pretty much the only way that this would happen. They start pulling old currency out of circulation when it gets to a bank, only for security reasons. Anyway, if something has a different design then normal, then you would look at the date and if it's old you would probably look it up to see if it's valuable. Just common sense.
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Pillar of the Community
979 Posts |
young I know that but the OP said it did not matter how long out of circulation it has been a note will never stay perfectly white. I wa smearly pointing out that if you took out a bill from the 1881 series and encased it it would stay white and not age.
--bill was WHITE. If it's 60 years old, I don't care how out of circulation it's been, it's not going to be a crisp green-black and white. Paper ages.
that is what the op said.
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Bedrock of the Community
United States
12437 Posts |
Quote:
And your point is? When someone says "paper", the average person thinks of a wood pulp-based product. There is a very sizable portion of the population, even those that collect coins, that mistakenly believes that currency is just printed on the equivalent of fancy copy paper. If you worked for Crane then you should know that 100+ year old uncirculated currency can indeed be virtually as white as the day it was printed. |
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Pillar of the Community
 United States
1227 Posts |
CK, I should have been clearer: what I mean is that a bill that has circulated, then been, say . . . stuck in a (regular, readable) book for safekeeping, then spent again YEARS later, will still age. A bill that has never been used and was sealed away from air will, of course, remain pristine, just as there are 1860's coppers that are still a brilliant red.
Biokhemist, I know about bill paper--state secret, actually mostly made of cloth, etc. However, I work in retail--I get to see firsthand every day how circulation degrades bills as dirt and oils get ground into the weave. This wasn't a little bit cream-colored or yellow, which is the level of deterioration I would expect from a bill this old with the level of wear this had--it was WHITE. I didn't join the retail hordes until after the introduction of colorized money, but this looked downright unnatural.
Finally, cursive: my work has a "don't confiscate" policy. If I'd had ten bucks, I would've boughten it off him, but I didn't.
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Pillar of the Community
United States
652 Posts |
Whether currency paper (and cotton(rag)/linen blends ARE considered a grade of paper!) remains white depends on how it is stored. Stored correctly and not exposed to light or chemical fumes, I totally agree it will remain white. But, so will many other paper grades. Note - currency paper and other paper grades are not woven like cloth. It's a mesh of interlocking fibers, rather than a weave. Even though it's not woven, the cotton/linen mixture has a strong bonding of the fibers with each other, to the extent that our currency can be inadvertently run though a washing machine without having the notes disintegrate. Most wood fiber papers will encounter much more damage if washed. The cotton blends (or wood pulp fibers), after processing into single fibers of a determined length, are dispersed with a lot of water in a "headbox", and this diluted slurry is then evenly spread across a continuously moving wire "belt" loop that is several feet across, the water is removed as the wet slurry proceeds across this wire mesh, and this wet sheet then run through a lengthy section of presses and cylindrical dryers, and the dried paper rolled up into large reels. Then the paper is sent off for whatever the end use will be. The same process is used for currency paper or any other fine paper grade.It's a lot more complex than I can explain here, but here's a good video of the process. NOTE: the video shows the process with wood, not cotton, as the fiber source, but the paper machine processing is still the same: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E4C3X26dxbMbiokemist - From my experience with Crane, they could care less about the aging process after they ship the paper to the printers. The cotton blend is one that has been used for many many years, due to the known durability of the cotton cellulose fiber being far superior to a cellulose wood fiber. So Crane wasn't really concerned about the aging process, since the tried and proven fiber blend, and meeting other paper specifications, were their big concern. I've never seen the Crane paper machines in action - as you can guess, only employees with security clearance are allowed into the mill. Most tech service work had to be done off-site and submitted. Sorry for being so lengthy, and I'm not wanting to sound argumentive. I just wanted to clear up some misconceptions out there about what paper is, and specifically the differences between currency paper vs. typical wood pulp paper. I think this is good information for currency collectors to know. Edited by mackwork
12/20/2012 08:18 am
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Replies: 21 / Views: 3,923 |
Posted 12/19/2012 5:05 pm
