Counterfeit During The Civil War

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Something for Nothing Counterfeiting is one of the oldest crimes and has affected most parts of the world at sometime or another. The United States was affected most during the nineteenth century, and to be more specific around the Civil War. In fact, over one third of the United States money was counterfeit during the Civil War. Banks were making their own currencies, and all of them had different designs. This made it very hard to distinguish whether or not the money was counterfeited. By the time the government took action, sixteen hundred banks had been making their own currencies. There were already over seven thousand different kinds of genuine notes, and over four thousand different kinds of counterfeit notes. Because of this, the…show more content…
The money could have things missing on it or be discolored. Such as, the hexagonal pattern that completely covers the bill. Sometimes this pattern just is not there because the counterfeiter’s printer was not good enough to get these super small lines on the paper (Brain “Security”). Also, the president’s portraits are hard to duplicate. The president is super detailed with intricate lines covering his entire face. The portrait should look very lifelike, and almost three dimensional, but if the note is a counterfeit than it will look two dimensional instead. There are two more places where loss of detail might also be the case. These are at the Federal Reserve and the serial numbers. Both of these markings should be very crisp and clean, but again in the counterfeit they will be dull and broken (Brain “Detect”). There is also one other way that the government finds counterfeits. This is the scanning machines at the Bureau of Engraving and Printing, but any information on these scanners is classified (Brain…show more content…
One way that the United States is planning on preventing counterfeiting in the future is by changing the designs on the bills every two to five years. In fact, the Bureau has been changing the currency since 1996. This was the first change in design in over fifty years. This change only occurred on the hundred dollar bill. However, in the next two years, the fifty and the twenty would also get their makeovers. After that the counterfeiters just simply switched bills and started counterfeiting ones, fives, and tens. So, in the year 2000, the Bureau introduced the new bills and counterfeiting seemed to stop all together (Conley). The hundred and the twenty changed again in 2003, introducing the watermark and different colors other than green on the bill. Also, just last year, the fifty and the ten got their makeover with the watermarks and the different colors (Hagenbough). Another way to prevent counterfeiting is through technology safeguards. So far only Cannon has taken the bureau up on the offer back in 1992. All information is classified for obvious reasons. However, one thing that happens when a counterfeiter tries to scan the money is a warning comes up telling him that it cannot copy this because under law it is not allowed. If a person would like to find out if their copier has
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