Protect Currency Notice For Free

Table of Contents Check for Color-Shifting Ink. Check the Watermark. Find the Security Thread. Compare the Bill with Another of the Same Value. Check Blue and Red Threads. Check Serial Numbers. Check the Bill's Texture. Check for Blurriness.

The good news is that even if a bill is torn in half, you can tape them together and exchange them at a Federal Reserve bank for fresh notes, as long as the serial numbers match. When bills are shredded or suffer severe damage, then things become a bit more complicated, but all hope is not yet lost.

Check Serial Numbers. Make sure that the serial numbers on a bill match, and examine them carefully. The numbers on counterfeit bills may be improperly spaced or misaligned. Also, the first letter of the serial number must correspond to a specific year of print.

U.S. money is protected from counterfeiting its quality of paper, the existence of blue and red fibers that can be plucked from the bill, and the difficulty in reproducing seals and portraits. Other countries currency is also protected by such safety checks.

Traditionally, anti-counterfeiting measures involved including fine detail with raised intaglio printing on bills which allows non-experts to easily spot forgeries. On coins, milled or reeded (marked with parallel grooves) edges are used to show that none of the valuable metal has been scraped off.

Limit the handling of the note. Carefully place it in a protective covering, such as an envelope. Surrender the note or coin only to a properly identified police officer or a U.S. Secret Service special agent.

All U.S. bills have tiny red and blue fibers embedded in the paper. Counterfeiters sometimes try to reproduce these by printing or drawing these fibers onto the paper, but close inspection reveals, however, that on the counterfeit note you will see that they are printed on, rather than being part of the paper itself.