Currency Image Use | Engraving & Printing (2024)

FAQs

Is it illegal to print money but not use it? ›

It's Illegal to Reproduce U.S. Currency

This includes scanning money and printing it from a regular old inkjet printer. So whether your goal is to spend the fake cash or just have some cool-looking prop money, making copies of real currency goes directly against federal law.

Intaglio printing is very specialized and used on high value negotiable documents like currency and portions of passports. Intaglio is used for the portraits, vignettes, scrollwork, numerals and lettering that is unique to each denomination.

If you have any $1 bills in your wallet or under your couch, you might want to think twice before using them. This is because currency collectors in the U.S. are willing to pay up to $150,000 for some versions of the dollar bill with a particular printing error.

The Treasury Department's Bureau of Engraving and Printing handles the printing of currency bills in the U.S., as directed by the Fed. Correction—Sept. 19, 2023: A previous version of this article incorrectly associated Quantitative Easing with the Federal Reserve's normal open market operations.

It wouldn't be historically unprecedented. In fact, it's been done many times in the past. But nothing comes free, and though printing more money would avoid higher taxes, it would also create a problem of its own: inflation. Inflation is a general increase in the prices of goods and services throughout an economy.

If you try to print currency notes using any modern printing or scanning device, they will refuse to assist you in this criminal effort. Some might even have shut down completely. No matter how much you're crumbling or folding a note, the machine will still detect the fact that you're trying to falsify your hand.

The BEP's Western Currency Facility in Fort Worth, Texas, begins producing currency. It is the first government facility outside Washington, D.C., to print Federal Reserve notes.

To make an almost exact copy of money, first put a piece of 75% cotton and 25% linen paper in a color printer. Put a real dollar bill in your scanner and scan it to the computer. Repeat on the other side. Print your money double-sided and cut it out as neatly as you can.

Under section 475 of the U.S. Criminal Code, “whoever designs, engraves, prints, makes, or executes, or utters, issues, distributes, circulates, or uses any business or professional card, notice, placard, circular, handbill, or advertisem*nt in the likeness or similitude of any obligation or security of the United ...

Printed in 1934, it was not intended for general use, but instead was used as an accounting device between branches of the Federal Reserve. It is illegal for a private individual to own this banknote.

Is it illegal to put glitter on money? ›

With that, you could conclude that yes it is, in fact, illegal to "mutilate, cut, deface, disfigure, or perforate, or unite or cement together" any bank bill, draft, note or evidence of debt by a national or federal entity.

“A serial number '1' for a 1976 $2 bill would be worth $20,000 or more. But [for] a majority of those people holding 1976 $2 bills, they are only worth face value. There are very few that actually exceed face value.” Other high-value serial numbers include what collectors call “solid” or “ladders.”

The Wealthy Nickel said last week that currency collectors are willing to pay up to $150,000 for pairs of dollar bills that were misprinted to have matching serial numbers.

Federal Laws on Counterfeit United States Currency

§ 471 makes it a federal crime to falsely make, alter, or counterfeit any security or obligation that belongs to the United States of America. The obligations and securities covered under the federal statute include currency, treasury notes, reserve notes and bonds.

Section 331 of Title 18 of the United States code provides criminal penalties for anyone who fraudulently alters, defaces, mutilates impairs, diminishes, falsifies, scales, or lightens any of the coins coined at the Mints of the United States.

Title 18, United States Code, Section 504 permits black and white reproductions of currency and other obligations, provided such reproductions meet the size requirement.

It is not illegal to write on paper currency, however, it is illegal to deface money. There are three things you CANNOT do to money: Change the denomination, for example, add zeros to make the value larger. Burn, shred or destroy money.