Currency Forgery Research Thread - Counterfeit and Novelty money. Forgery condemnation thread.

[Alex Hogendorp]

One of the biggest obstacles banknote collectors often stumble upon are forgery notes, for would be banknote collectors, without doing any research could end up buying a fake note. A notorious example are Zimbabwe Currency. People in China have been making easy money selling fake Zimbabwe notes or novelty notes larger than the 100 Trillion Dollar Bill. Due to the poor material used to create Zimbabwe currency is often easy to counterfeit. Zimbabwe banknotes, especially it's 100 Trillion Dollar Banknote has been a popular collectors item and has fallen victim to forgery as websites have to guide consumers to be able to tell if their banknotes are real based on it's security features. The United States dollar is another major example of a currency that fell victim to forgery as it's often sold on black markets such as the dark web.

This thread is a discussion regarding research into the underbelly of the forgery business and not a thread teaching people how to create forgery banknotes as I (and hopefully others) highly condemn that practice and is highly illegal.

 

[Tsukasa Kadoya]

One way modern forgers to bypass the pen test is to use phone book paper. The pens react to starch in the paper and that is what causes fakes to have a black mark. Real bills have no starch and thus the mark is yellow.
Phone book paper, for whatever reason, is made the same way, and thus if you mark a page on your phone book's white pages it turns yellow instead of black.
Forgers will use phone book paper to make fake bills for this very reason, because VERY few people pay attention to things like watermarks, security strips, or raised markings and will instead just use the pen.
Another thing crooks use are fake bills like the ones marked "For Motion Picture Use Only", because they look VERY similar to the real thing.

If the printer/manufacturer cares enough they'll add cotton to the paper to make the bills softer and less crinkly, These are the most common bills bankers and cashiers will run across because anyone can buy them.
Another way to spot fakes is if the image is blurry or fuzzy. (The $100 bill looks fuzzy and less defined than the real thing)

So the best ways to make sure a bill is real are to feel it, check for a shadowed image through a light, make sure it has a (correct) strip, and in larger bills to scratch certain areas.
I know this stuff because I've been a banker for a long time.
Fake coins are super rare, but they do happen in case you're wondering.

 

[waffle]

For US notes the most accurate way to tell is feel of the paper plus security features. The best counterfeits will pass the fell test and the security features will look right but be for the wrong denomination, berceuse they are $5's washed and reprinted as $100's

 

[Chongqing]

I used to work as a cashier and I learned a good way to tell if a bill is real that didn't alert the customers (and thus couldn't offend them).

On an American bill, the jacket being worn by the man in the portrait has a ridged texture. If you run your finger nail across the jacket, you'll feel this unique texture.

It's pretty cool, one of my favorite things about US Dollars.

 

[Tsukasa Kadoya]

I used to work as a cashier and I learned a good way to tell if a bill is real that didn't alert the customers (and thus couldn't offend them).

On an American bill, the jacket being worn by the man in the portrait has a ridged texture. If you run your finger nail across the jacket, you'll feel this unique texture.

It's pretty cool, one of my favorite things about US Dollars.

The $100 is the best example of this texture. If you guys find a $100 bill, especially the newer ones, give Ben's shoulder a scratch.

 

[std::string]

Fake coins are super rare, but they do happen in case you're wondering.

How on earth would this even be worth doing? Trying to cash in non-circulating coins would be extremely suspicious so you'd basically be limited to trying to make bootleg quarters.

 

[Netizennameless]

How on earth would this even be worth doing? Trying to cash in non-circulating coins would be extremely suspicious so you'd basically be limited to trying to make bootleg quarters.

Probably to scam inexperienced coin collectors.

 

[Tsukasa Kadoya]

How on earth would this even be worth doing? Trying to cash in non-circulating coins would be extremely suspicious so you'd basically be limited to trying to make bootleg quarters.

I only know of fake coins because we had a mexican peso that was ground down and covered with a fake 50 cent piece.
If I can find it at work again I'll take a picture, its wild.

 

[SirCliveSinclairdabbing]

How on earth would this even be worth doing? Trying to cash in non-circulating coins would be extremely suspicious so you'd basically be limited to trying to make bootleg quarters.

Vending machines.
I'm not saying certain grades of stainless steel carry the same weight as certain coins and you definitely shouldn't ask for a batch of trolley tokens out of that grade from a laser cutting firm.

 

[Osama Bin Laden]

nice try fednigger

 

[FailurePersonifiedV2]

Forgery is COOL!
is what I would say if I didn’t think fiat currency is totally real and we don’t just use it to justify not giving arbitrary amounts of resources unless we receive an arbitrary “amount” for them to spend on arbitrarily expensive housing, food, and other necessities.
So fr, forgery is bad

 

[Troon_Patrol]

How on earth would this even be worth doing? Trying to cash in non-circulating coins would be extremely suspicious so you'd basically be limited to trying to make bootleg quarters.

When you are young and stupid and broke $20 is a lot of money for a HS student. A incorrectly stamped coin that snuck through the minting process has value even if it got that way AFTER it left the mint. Anything further than that I'll have to refer you to my attorney and a time machine.

I always found forgery and related financial crimes interesting. I own a small biz and have to make a lot of large cash deposits, I was burned once over man many years, 2 fake $100 bills. I have had a few the teller thought were sus but ultimately accepted them. In the U.S. if you hand a teller a fake $100 bill they will confiscate it and NOT compensate you. I was surprised they had me fill out a form or something but, I never got a call from any law enforcement entity asking me anything about who fucked me over.

I recall I think it was a national syndicated NBC program where the police setup shop for a fake fencing operation. Shit was so low effort and cringe but that didn't stop a lot of criminals from dropping by and incriminating themselves to total strangers with hidden cameras. They ran into one guy moonlighting as a counterfeiter, he showed them how to use a specific automotive solvent to strip the ink from a bill to reprint a higher value. The producers blurred the brand of solvent used but, if you are a car guy you are familiar with the stuff just based on appearance alone. I always thought that was funny.

The pen test can be bypassed by coating the bill in a thin clear film, one of the more successful counterfeiters used "aqua net" brand hairspray to seal the bills he printed. He ended up making around $80,000 in profit before the feds got him. IIRC he used some kind of customer rewards card to purchase supplies, supplies he kept buying over and over. This was apparently critical in the investigation somehow. He saved %10 on his counterfeiting supplies but kept a very nice record of much materials he used in his process for the feds.

Albert Talton


I don't' recommend anyone to attempt forgery, even if you take away the moral factor of fucking over the little guy who takes a bill and doesn't look twice, the criminal repercussions and LE entity regulating / tracking counterfeiting are very heavy handed. Another thing I found funny/hilarious are the scans of currency on the darknet. There are scans of fiat currency sold/traded online for the purpose of copying and forging. If you think about it this has to be one of the dumbest fucking things ever. If I were the SS, in charge of counterfeiting regulation I would do the exact same thing. Now anytime any bill is under the slightest scrutiny all you have to do is check a short list of known bad serial numbers, they could even create a fake serial number starting with a character that does not exist in circulation, any teller would know any large bill starting with that character is to be treated as forgery. Not to mention who the fuck has the resources to counterfeit fiat and not have a $100 scanner?

 

[Zbk3VmLfujjzjxBd43tL]

Forgery and counterfeit currency is like an infinite money cheat but IRL. I'm a multi-millionaire because I print my own. I'd tell you more but I don't want some low effort nigga copying my secrets and alerting the Feds.