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What Other Counterfeit Detection Features Are Available?

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The most recent $20 bills printed from the United States Bureau of Engraving and Printing, have a multitude of security features designed to make counterfeiting more difficult. The most obvious of these features is the “20” in the lower right corner written in color changing ink. There is also a security strip embedded in the paper to the left of Andrew Jackson that is visible if you hold the bill up the light. Other new features include micro-writing, a watermark and very closely space lines that are harder for a counterfeiter to reproduce.

All of these features are nice, but none of them are as easy as the counterfeit detector pen. The counterfeit detector pen solves the biggest counterfeiting threat. At one time counterfeiting operations used expensive presses and special links and papers to create exact duplicates of the bills. Because of the color copiers and color printers that are available, people try to create passable facsimiles of a bill. They are not trying to make an exact copy and they are not particularly careful or meticulous, so they copy or print onto normal, wood based paper. They are trying to create something close enough that people won’t notice anything if they give the bill a passing glance.

The counterfeit detector pen is extremely simple. It contains an iodine solution that reacts with the starch in wood-based paper to create a black stain. When the solution is applied to the fiber based paper used in real bills, no discoloration occurs. The pen does nothing but detect bills printed on normal copier paper instead of the fine papers used by the United States Treasury.

Some counterfeiters bleach small denominations and print more valuable bills on the blank paper to evade these test.

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