I pulled out these two today when I cashed my check 1990 and 1974. Are they worth keeping now that they've been defaced by the counterfeit detection pen? Some moron drew a smiley face over Franklin's portrait on the 1990 one. Is there any way to get rid of those marks without effecting the value of the note?
Sorry, I don't know of any way to remove the marks without damaging the bills. One of my LCS guys uses a counterfeit detection pen on 100's. Doesn't he know how useless they are and how to tell if a $100 bill is genuine without defacing a bill?
Most people in retail I've found don't even know how the pens work even though it's written on the side of the pen. Next time you're at the checkout ask them what they are looking for to happen when they use the maker. 99.999% of the time they have no idea, it's amazing. It's also useless at detecting washed notes. They love to mark up the $2's I spend as well. Who is going risk federal prison to fake a $2 bill?
Funny you should mention that... has already happened not that long ago in Canada (2005-2006), with our 1 and 2 dollar coins... http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/story/2006/10/06/qc-counterfeitloonies.html
1974-1990 $100's are surprising very common. I used to ask my teller to hold them for me, as I do $1-$20 small heads, until I'd go in there and she would consistently have gobs of them for grabs. Same thing at 2 other banks. So I changed my collecting standards for $50's and $100's. Luckily, my teller is so awesome that she still checks the old $100's for me... And about 2 weeks ago I was lucky enough to pick up a 1977 $100 B-* in VF condition. 1993's don't seem to come up all that often, and neither does anything before 1974. My same teller is also saving 2 AU near consecutive 1990 $100 L-B's for me as well as a 1990 $50 B-*. So IMO, with or without counterfeit detection pen marks, they are worth face value. They are actually also worth a pain in the bottom to spend.
The marks from the counterfeit pens typically disappear after 24-36 hours. After a day or two you will never know that they were marked (unless perhaps, you looked at them under a UV light).
Do all of them work like this? I don't collect bills, but I have one in my safe that I know has been there for at least 6 months that has a yellow stripe on it that I assume was a counterfeit detection pen. Maybe it was just a highlighter.
I sometimes like to wipe my notes with a raw, cut potato, but lightly, and only on one side. When they tell me it's fake, I tell them to try the other side. I've never seen a checkout clerk get so confused. Big fun!
I have a 1950 series $20 that had been marked. I got it a long time ago. I suppose it even would have been a black mark. But it's disappeared now. I don't know about 24-36 hours, but it will go away.
http://calladus.blogspot.com/2006/09/testing-counterfeit-money-detector-pen.html Counterfeit detector pens recognize coffee filters as legit currency. That's because the pens detect starch. That's also why rickmp's trick with the potato works.
Basically these pens contain iodine, that react with starch to produce a dark color. The idea in theory is real money doesn't have starch in the paper. Problem being you can get false positives from any starch-free paper, and false negatives if genuine currency gets any starch on it. You're much better of carefully examining the other security measures on the bills instead of relying on these pens.
And that's precisely why counterfeits are often passed at places that use these pens. A cashier has a sense of security and is perfectly happy accepting a note that passes the pen test. He or she just needs a fall back to say "I checked it and it showed up as legit, so it's not my fault." The very use of the pen is just asking for counterfeits at your place of business.
Not sure if all the pens are the same but I have some notes that were marked. After a few weeks the marks went away.
This is all too true. I was at a casino mini mart earlier this year and a customer in front of me used a $100 bill at the checkout. The cashier used the pen on the bill. I know this cashier so I talked with him for a while. I told the cashier that the pens aren't reliable and I told him that I check for Abe Lincoln when I check my $100 bills. He said he didn't care and that it wouldn't be his problem if the bill was fake because he checked it with the pen. These pens are a joke and their use encourages nothing but arrogance and ignorance. They should be outlawed in favor of using a comprehensive and educated approach when it comes to validating currency. That, however, would probably be seen as too much work for the masses of low morale, "I don't care" cashiers out there.
