I notice magnetic strips have been placed in bills denominated $10 and up, 1990 series and later. I have been told this is part of an anticounterfeiting scheme, but I wonder. Can airports or other places with metal detectors pick up the dollar amounts when you pass through the gates? Is this another attempt by Big Brother to keep tabs on us? –P.R., Madison, Wisconsin
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Oh, right, like the government has nothing better to do than count your bankroll by remote control. Conceivably it would be useful to know if some international drug smuggler were trying to sneak a suitcase full of 20s on the next flight to Little Rock, but the “magnetic strips” won’t help Big Brother do that either–they’re nonmagnetic polyester filaments. The filament, which is embedded in the bill to the left of the Federal Reserve seal and says stuff like TWENTY USA TWENTY USA, is strictly an anticounterfeiting move. High-quality color photocopiers have made counterfeiting easy, and the number of fakes out there has been rising fast. Since it’s embedded in the bill, the polyester filament won’t be picked up by the copier, and so no lettering will be visible when you hold the fake bill up to the light.
I learn all this from Frank Abagnale, a convicted check forger turned D.C.-based consultant who makes his money telling banks how to avoid getting scammed by the likes of his former self. He reports that if you use rice paper in a Canon 500 color copier you can make fake money that’s virtually impossible to distinguish from the genuine article on casual examination. The copies are so good that the government prevailed upon Canon to replace the 500 with a new model, the 550, which has a computer chip that detects when you’re trying to copy money and prints a black block instead.
