New generation of counterfeit $100 "Supernotes" reported
CaptHenway
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Series 2006. Per Coin World:
Numismatist. 50 year member ANA. Winner of four ANA Heath Literary Awards; three Wayte and Olga Raymond Literary Awards; Numismatist of the Year Award 2009, and Lifetime Achievement Award 2020. Winner numerous NLG Literary Awards.
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It’s a shame that all of this is going to end badly for the Korean peninsula. Kim Jong Un keeps poking the bear with a pointed stick.
High stakes criminal on a suicide mission willing to take millions of people with him.
"A dog breaks your heart only one time and that is when they pass on". Unknown
It's too bad that the story doesn't give any pick-up-points to help identifying these. Perhaps the SS thinks this would be of too much help to the manufacturers.
It would be good to know how to detect these notes. I understand that broadcasting such details allows the counterfeiters to correct their errors... however, without such information, the public is subject to the fraud. Cheers, RickO
Such high quality counterfeits could wreak havoc on our economy if allowed to proliferate, a scary prospect.
I recall several years ago attending a Numismatic Theater presentation at an ANA World's Fair of Money, presented by a Secret Service agent under the auspices of the Treasury Department Counterfeit Detection Division, discussing the threat of then new counterfeit $20 Federal Reserve notes which they had recently discovered. He described them as the very best they had ever seen, and almost impossible to detect. At the end of his presentation he opened it up to questions from the audience. One attendee asked the obvious question: "If they were so good as to be virtually undetectable, how was the Treasury Department able to detect them? His response was a bit sobering. He replied that they were discovered in circulation one week before the release of the new, official $20 Federal Reserve notes, being issued to avert counterfeiting.
That explains WHEN they were discovered, but not HOW!
"His response was a bit sobering. He replied that they were discovered in circulation one week before the release of the new, official $20 Federal Reserve notes, being issued to avert counterfeiting."
Sooooo, identifying those "super" 20s was justification for the upcoming new 20s? Ugh!
This does give me reason to wonder, when the most recent note redesigns were done, it was to implement anti-counterfeit measures. I guess they need more of those.
nope. By 1 week before introduction, the educational literature for the new $20s had been in circulation for over a year. Remember, every bank teller and cashier in the US needed to be alerted so they would accept the bills. Also the public. There were brochures, adverts, even downloadable guides to the new security features.
ANA 50 year/Life Member (now "Emeritus")
When you see pics of American $100 bills where drug people and other places have them in bundles or even pallets full of them, it makes you wonder how easy it would be to slip some fakes into the bundles.
I've seen one place where they had a counterfeit detection device that they ran the bill though [even $1 bills] before they accepted it.
"That explains WHEN they were discovered, but not HOW!"
Actually, it does explain how, as BStrauss3 states above:
"By 1 week before introduction, the educational literature for the new $20s had been in circulation for over a year. Remember, every bank teller and cashier in the US needed to be alerted so they would accept the bills. Also the public. There were brochures, adverts, even downloadable guides to the new security features."
The high quality counterfeit notes were of the 'new' design, incorporating all of the anti-counterfeiting elements of the new, but not-yet-released official $20 notes. I guess I should have explained that chronological detail in my earlier post.
Another scary aspect of those counterfeit notes was that the Secret Service agent said they were produced in Israel, our friend and ally.
Do you think the North Korean government may have covertly hacked the BEP’s suppliers like Crane for the technical specs on paper, ink, engraving material, etc.? This might explain the high level of cloning.
I would think that reverse engineering form sample notes, at best, would only give mediocre results. The intricate methodology of note production is not readily discernable by finish product observation and analysis.
The distributed literature on detection may show the various devices but it does not elucidate the chemical or mechanical intricacies on how to create these features and embed them into the printing process of currency.
So, "super note" = counterfeit?? Why not just say so?
maybe they are better than the originals, making them 'super'
some are saying North Korea is source of super notes along with internet crime such as WannaCry virus extortion
Where they were manufactured has no bearing on anything Governmental. Who manufactured them is the question. I rather doubt the Israeli Government was behind it.
@Lakesammman
@davewesen
AFAIK, the US Treasury refers to all "extremely deceptive counterfeit currency" as "SUPER NOTES." Everyone (?) knows that means "Counterfeit."
It is similar to the way that many authenticators refer to the very deceptive counterfeits that are certified as genuine and slabbed as "state-of-the-art" but they add the word "counterfeit" because "SUPER COIN" was already used for highly regarded genuine specimens.
Why counterfeit an obsolete design?
There are very few of this design still in circulation. Any quantity showing up would be greatly scrutinized.
This story doesn't add up, to say the least.
Series 2009 and 2013 notes are the now current design.
Not obsolete. Still legal tender, still in circulation world-wide.
Open the link the OP provided. The "Super Notes" are of the newest design.
Most $100's of all generations are offshore, and we've never repudiated any, so you could counterfeit any and make money. I believe that it's also still true that all of the presses used by counterfeiters for supernotes have been traced back to us...yep we sold them over the years. Same with minting equipment and die steel.
it never ceases
That's frightening. Thanks for sharing.
No, these are not our current designs. They are series 2006. I'll insert a pic of a 2006 note and a current note and you'll see quite a difference. More than 99% of the $100s in circulation are now the newer design.
And no, it makes no sense to counterfeit obsolete designs. Even though they are still legal tender, they are impossible to pass in ANY quantity without raising major suspicion and therefore something that nobody with half a brain would counterfeit.
And the printing presses are the least difficult to obtain component in making good counterfeits, provided you have some money. Paper with convincing security features and plates are much harder to duplicate.
I think you are correct about circulation, but at least 70% of all the $100's ever printed are offshore. They mostly don't circulate, they are the "mattress" currency of the world. The official position is that we do not know where they are, but they aren't here in the US.
My sister inherited a teapot stuffed with 8 1977 $100 bills my dad had once stashed.. older stuff is still out there.
Yup, and it'll go on and on....... !!!
What does our government care at the rate they are spending / destroying the dollar anyway?
Paper money eventually returns to its intrinsic value. Zero. Voltaire. Ebay coinbowlllc
I think what is missing from your equation is the amount of US currency that is used overseas. It's certainly not 99% of the new stuff!
I lived in Russia around 5 months out of 1 year(2003-04) and while they loved US currency more than there own...it had better be crisp if you wanted to use it!