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Counterfeit banknote detection pen

Currency authenticator

A counterfeit banknote detection pen, used to detect fake banknotes

A counterfeit banknote detection pen is a pen used to apply an iodine-based ink to banknotes in an attempt to determine their authenticity. The ink reacts with starch in wood-based paper to create a black or blue mark but the paper in a real bill contains no starch, so the pen mark remains unchanged.

Background

Counterfeit banknote detection pens are used to detect counterfeit Swiss franc, euro and United States banknotes, amongst others. Typically, genuine banknotes are printed on paper based on cotton fibers and do not contain the starches that are reactive with iodine. When the pen is used to mark genuine bills, the mark is yellowish or colourless.

Such pens are most effective against counterfeit notes printed on a standard printer or photocopier paper. The chemical properties of US banknotes printed before 1960 make marking pens useless, resulting in false positives.{{cite web

Reception

Pen manufacturers claim such pens will detect a great majority of counterfeit bills and are an easy counterfeit detection method that does not require expensive gadgets.

Critical reception

Critics suggest the effectiveness is much lower. Critics claim that professional counterfeiters use starch-free paper, making the pen unable to detect the majority of counterfeit money in circulation.{{cite journal |url-access= subscription |archive-date= 2008-03-29 |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20080329051459/http://www.collegian.psu.edu/archive/2008/03/27/paranormal_skeptic_addresses_c.aspx |url-status= dead |url-status=dead

US counterfeiters bleach small denominations and print more valuable bills on the resulting blank paper to evade this test,{{cite news |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20080405085904/http://www.kspr.com/news/whereyoulive/greene/16592831.html |archive-date= 2008-04-05 |url-status= dead

False positives

The effectiveness of the pens may be affected by external methods. Simply having a banknote pass through laundry, depending on the soaps and bleaches used, can cause a bill to fail the test when it is otherwise accepted. Additionally, it was discovered that treating a counterfeit note with a dilute solution of vitamin C will cause a false negative: that is, it will respond to the iodine-based ink as though it were made of the same paper as a valid banknote.

References

(April 2000). "How does a counterfeit detector pen work? 123". HowStuffWorks.
(29 April 2016). "Lunchroom Lunacy: ISD cops investigate $2 bill spent on school lunch". abc13.com.
Abdullah Beydoun. (20 July 2017). "How do Counterfeit Pen Tests Work?". Banknote World Resource Hub.

Info: Wikipedia Source

This article was imported from Wikipedia and is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Content has been adapted to SurfDoc format. Original contributors can be found on the article history page.

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