OTish: Book ID ?

Do these people not understand that this destabilises a currency if they keep on doing it? I vaguely recollect the book actually, but I believe that now the law will not let people profit by telling their crime stories, it may well be that publishers are shy to reprint such books. Brian

And yet Camerons memoirs still sell.

Sounds interesting. It used to be claimed that US currency was low on security features, e.g the limited colours.

The focus and 1 mm squares stuff sounds to me like an invention. It's a while since I handled any US currency, is it "crinkly"?

I must admit I thought the same, notes look the same as 90 years ago, mind you I've not handled one since 2002.

The book exploded that myth. What *really* pissed of the US, and made it imperative that the author did a deal with the UK was that his little hobby effectively torpedoes years of development. The US treasury was forced to start from scratch.

Even if it's denied a reprint (and it's really an ephemeral story), there must be old copies around.

One of the innovations (in the 80s ?) was a mix of 1mm plastic threads in different colours that could be physically teased out of the paper. Any counterfeit would simply be a photographic reproduction of such. So an expert could quickly determine if a note was printed on genuine paper easily.

Presumably there must have been additional measures to prevent fraudsters bleaching $1 dollar bills and printing $100 artwork onto the paper :) ?

I seem to recall that there was once a viable scam that involved inserting a slice containing a zero that converted (was it?) $100 to $1000. The artwork was virtually indistinguishable on both.

Oops sorry hit send too soon while doing some googling. I was going to suggest ABE books if we could find an author or title

That's art forgery, but it looks interesting.

They're extremely conservative about changing the art/design, but AIUI they do keep introducing new security features.

Sadly, both those details escape me. The guy started off forging travellers cheques in the 60s.

It was a good read, and highlighted the problems with forging that stop it being the easy money you might imagine. Firstly you need to offload your funny money carefully and at well below face value. And secondly, no matter how careful, how paranoid, you inevitably have to be physically next to a sodding big printing press that is hardly portable. Catching most forgers is simply a matter of time.

Bit short of cash are you? Fancy a bit of d-i-y? :-)

This sounds like what you're after

Could be ... I wonder how it escaped my searching previously ?

SWMBO is nagging me for a suggestion for a present. That might fit the bill :)

have you already organised the lock-up for the presses?

;)

Generally I have a dim view of people who break the law. The bottom line is once you do so, you put yourself in a position where it's "you vs. the world". And there are a lot of people in "the world". Certainly enough to limit any odds you might have of getting a good nights sleep.

That's not to say I'm an angel - there are a few laws I have, do and will break. But in full understanding of the odds.

No one could be less compliant than my Dad (not helped by the fact he isn't British ...). But even he knuckled down and did his (non-UK) national service for 2 years. Not through any patriotic fervour, or even military leanings. Simply because (as he said) two years hard graft (and it wasn't that hard :) ) is better than a lifetime of being chased for not turning up. It's why I trotted to the embassy to get exempted

A forger's tale, Author: Greenhalgh, Shaun. is art forgery

I can't find it in the library catalogue but I read one good book about counterfeit currency - I think British.

IIRC they faked the watermark by printing it in white ink, and printed a fake metallic foil strip with metallic ink, then partially overprinting it with more white ink to get the interrupted pattern.

Owain

In the book I read (I think it is the Charles Black one) then everything was done photographically. With the added twist that for some reason (and maybe some photography or optics experts might make sense) trying to photograph a complete dollar bill wasn't possible without some bits being slightly out of focus enough to make it impossible to reproduce cleanly. The forger got around that by photographing in tiny squares (1mm IIRC) resetting the focus each time, and stitching them together to make a single plate-quality photo.

I'm not an expert in printing, nor repro work ....