Blogson Mike the Marine of From The Halls To The Shores asked me to check out this burgeoning controversy at Hot Air about possible Hezbollah counterfeiting.

I've had 7 years of doing nothing but fondling currency all damn day as a bank teller, and I ran the vault for 4 of those years. Somewhere around $1 million a month passed through my hands.

And not just idly. I inspected those bills closely.

Not looking for counterfeits so much as looking for errors. They're worth a bit to collectors, and I've found and sold my share.

And yes, I've spotted a few counterfeits, too. Some good, some poor.

Anyway, my analysis.

Re: Hot Air & Sticky Notes - The placement of the treasury seal is under such loose tolerances so as to be practically random. As long as as it's not either so far off as to touch other design elements, the BEP (Bureau of Engraving & Printing) will usually let it slide. One extreme example of sloppiness that I found in circulation:

(click to enlarge)

Minor shifts mean nothing.

Also, why all this fuss about squinting at signatures? Try looking at the serial numbers. The first letter tells you which series they are. If it starts with "A", it's the 96 series. It's a "B" it's a 99 series, etc.

More on that at the US Paper Money Info site.

Anyway, by squinting at those horrible pictures, I think I see a "B", and I also think I see Lawrence Summers' dark little scrawl at the bottom, making it a series 99. Which, as you can see at the link, didn't even start get printed until October of 2000, and the last of them rolled off the presses in March of 2002

Which sounds old, and it's making people suspicious because it looks like new currency. But it's NOT suspicious. New currency doesn't just pour out into the streets the day after it comes off the presses. Mostly it sits in vaults at the Federal Reserve banks until they run short of circulated currency, at which point it's shipped to local banks. Local banks don't like handing out new currency either, because it sticks together - increasing the likelihood of counting errors. So it likewise sits in vaults until circulated currency runs short.

Also consider that these bills are part of large cash payments. People who handle these sorts of transactions don't handle individual bills. They count them once, put them back in their paper currency straps, and wait until they need to pay someone else a big pile of cash. The new recipients do the same. Again, this cash mostly sits for months or years until it's needed, unlike the cash in your wallet. Its crispness is not suspicious at all.

Re: Commoner Sense - That man is getting handed at most $2000. Trust me, I know how thick a stack of 100 new $100 bills is.

Re: Little Green Footballs - Those are photocopies for tracking serial numbers. There's no green in the Treasury seal or the "100" in the lower right corner, and this is a color photograph.

Re: Snapped Shot - The lack of a security strip is inconclusive. Here's the photo:

(click to enlarge)

Here's a comparison bill:

(click to enlarge)

Even with a large, clear scan, the strip is hard to spot unless you know it comes straight down through the "I" in America. The first picture isn't necessarily clear or well-lit enough to spot the strip.

About this: "Thomas and Marcie write via e-mail that, not only should a portion of the security strip be visible towards the top of the bill in Photo #9, but that in Photo #15, the green color is brighter than a bill would normally be at that angle. Furthermore, on the backs of the bills, the semi-circle appears too green."

The color of the green ink varies tremendously during a print run, from very dark green to medium green, depending on when the printer's rollers were last inked. This variation means NOTHING.

Re: More Snapped Shot - "another commenter has indicated that bills, when placed in stacks, should show some separation at the edges, as the currency is printed on more of a cloth material, than on thread. This is still under investigation."

A pack of spanking new bills nestles together seamlessly. They HAVE, after all, been pressed tightly together by high speed machinery during the packing process. It can - and does - still hang tight even after some handling, which is why tellers hate new currency.

But without a video, I really can't tell.

So these bills MAY be fakes, but from what I've seen, ALL of the people saying so are using the wrong evidence to try to prove it.

If I'm missing any other evidence in need of debunking, let me know.

Posted by: Harvey at 02:33 PM | Comments (9) | Add Comment
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