NOVA Online | Secrets of Making Money | The Currency Paper (2024)

The Paper
Currency paper has a unique feel and is extremely durable. Is it really'paper' in the traditional sense? There are no wood fibers or starch incurrency paper. Instead, like high quality stationery, currency paper iscomposed of a special blend of cotton and linen fibers. The strength comesfrom raw materials continuously refined until the special feel of the currencyis achieved. People who handle money on a regular basis, such as bank tellers,can easily determine if a bill is counterfeit by this distinctive feel. Thecharacteristic yellowish-green tint of U.S. currency is another distinctivefeature which is, in fact, hard for color photocopiers to accurately match.

Red and Blue Fibers
Red and blue fibers have been a longtime ingredient of U.S. currency paper.Special features like these fibers are embedded in currency paper to ensurethat reproduction is difficult. While some counterfeiters attempt to drawthese fibers onto the surface of the bill, close inspection reveals the absenceof the authentic embedded fiber and the clear presence of crude lines drawn onthe surface.

Security Thread
Security threads, which now run the width of the currency, are not a newinvention. In some early versions of paper currency, thin security threadswere added to paper. In these currencies, the number of threads in the paperrepresented a specific denomination. Security threads help preventcounterfeiters from raising notes—bleaching out the paper of a lowdenomination and printing a higher denomination onto the authentic paper. Thenew threads were first added to U.S. currency in 1990 and have recently beenimproved. In the redesigned notes, a security thread will appear in adifferent location depending on the denomination. The thread for the new $100bill carries the words "USA 100" and can only be seen with transmitted light,which makes photocopying impossible. In addition, the new security threadsglow red when held over ultraviolet light.

Watermark
For the 1996 series a watermark was added to the paper. This is also not a newinvention. Watermarks were first used in the late thirteenth century in thehandmade papers of Italy. They have long been used to mark importantdocuments, and have appeared on a variety of foreign currency. Watermarkscan also be found as part of any high quality stationery. Even Ben Franklin'sstationery had its own personal watermark. The watermark is created during thepaper making process and is caused by variations in the density of the paper.As light passes through these tiny variations in thickness, it createsdifferent tones. When held up to transmitted light these varying tonesform a clear image—and in the case of the new $100, a second image of BenFranklin.

Anatomy of a Bill: The Printed Elements

© | Updated August 2002