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MACHINE FOR DETECTING COUNTERFEIT U.S. $100 BILLS
A Bloomberg story discusses a machine developed to detect a new generation of counterfeit $100 bills.
-Editor
Using ultraviolet and infrared rays as well as magnetic field sensors, the founder of Matsumura Engineering Co., is targeting the fake U.S. bills that are popping up in countries from South America to Asia and the Middle East. Matsumura calls the new counterfeits “Super S,” which stands for “super special”. They’re a forgery of the Series 1996-2003A $100 note that features an image of Benjamin Franklin. The Series 2009A $100 notes introduced in October 2013 have a 3-D security ribbon making them more difficult to fake. “Humans can't identify the new counterfeit bills and most of the detectors used in financial institutions are useless against them” says Matsumura. “The paper and ink used for the counterfeit bill are almost the same as genuine ones.” Matsumura, who also works as a counterfeit advisor for law-enforcement agencies in Japan and the U.S., first detected the new counterfeits last fall. He coined the term for a previous generation of counterfeits known as “Super K” – they likely originated in North Korea. To read the complete article, see: Japanese Inventor Says His Machine Can ID Even the Best 'Super S' $100 Counterfeits (www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-07-16/japanese-inventor-says-his-machine-can-id-even-the-best-super-s-100-counterfeits.html)
Returning from our vacation today we ended up stopping for lunch at a Wendy's in Danville, VA. While I had some smaller notes they weren't enough to cover the bill so I offered a $100 note, but the cashier refused to accept it. Apparently the latest counterfeits thwart the counterfeit-detecting pen test. The manager explained that they'd been stuck with two or three of these recently - their bank could detect them, but not anyone at the store. She said they'd even seen counterfeits of notes as low as $10. That one was easier to detect - it was made on construction paper!
-Editor
Wayne Homren, Editor The Numismatic Bibliomania Society is a non-profit organization promoting numismatic literature. See our web site at coinbooks.org. To submit items for publication in The E-Sylum, write to the Editor at this address: whomren@gmail.com To subscribe go to: https://my.binhost.com/lists/listinfo/esylum All Rights Reserved. NBS Home Page Contact the NBS webmaster 
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