The main signs of authenticity of US dollars.

The main signs of authenticity of US dollars..

The main signs of authenticity of US dollars.

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Banknotes called dollars first appeared back in 1861, when the American government decided to issue paper means of payment. The leaders of that young American state did not suspect how just a century later the national currency of the United States would be known and popular throughout the world. It is estimated that if all printed American banknotes were laid one after another, they would encircle the globe at the equator approximately 24 times.

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The dollar has achieved particular popularity in Russia. The population of our country, exhausted by inflationary shocks and monetary reforms, has taken to hiding in a stocking and calculating its budget in American banknotes. Unscrupulous people want to profit from such active circulation of foreign currency. Using improvised means, they try to engage in their own replication of American money. The most common counterfeit banknotes are 100 dollars, followed by counterfeit banknotes in denominations of 20, 10, 50 and 1 dollars.

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The American government is actively fighting counterfeiters as best it can. And it is doing so quite successfully. Since 1865, a special Secret Service has been created under the US Treasury Department, whose sole task to this day is to combat counterfeit currency. American authorities claim that, thanks to the efforts of this service, 82 percent of counterfeit banknotes issued in the world were discovered and seized just before they were put into circulation in 1996. Despite such successful actions by the American secret service, one should not lull attention.

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The US government has taken reliable measures to protect its money supply. The most effective way to protect yourself from counterfeiting is to pass the bill through a special currency detector. Since the early 80s, ferromagnetics have been introduced into the inks for printing US dollars, which give a corresponding signal during verification. But what if you don’t have this device? When buying currency at exchange offices or from hands, you should know that:

In the USA, the following are in circulation: paper money, mainly issued by the Federal Reserve Banks, in denominations of 1, 2, 5, 10, 20, 50, and 100 dollars. Banknotes are printed on white paper with blue and red silk fibers pressed into its mass. The size of all paper bills is the same: 156.4 x 66.6 mm.

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US banknotes are printed on very thick and durable paper. Printing is done from metal engraved plates, as a result of which the image acquires a convexity, which is clearly visible to the touch. This feature is characteristic of genuine banknotes. The frames of the front and back sides consist of a thin guilloché pattern (except for the back side of the $100 note).

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In the center of the front side of each ticket is a portrait corresponding to the denomination of the US banknote. The portraits are extremely finely executed, expressive, and surrounded by a background in the form of a fine hatched grid. On the right at the top and left at the bottom of the front side of the ticket are images of the serial number, which have the same color as the Treasury seal. The rest (text and portrait) is printed in black ink.

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The text and images on the front side (portraits, rosettes, etc.) are printed in gray ink, except for the treasury serial number, which is bright green. The banknote serial number consists of ten characters: eight digits and two letters printed at the beginning and end of the serial number. Instead of the last letter, there may be a star-shaped sign. The first letter of the number corresponds to the letter designation of the bank that issued the banknote.

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The Treasury Seal is depicted on all U.S. banknotes on the front side (to the right or left of the portrait) in the form of a jagged circle with a shield with scales and a key in the center and the inscription in white font around it on banknotes issued before 1969: «THESAUR AMER SEРTENT SIGIL». On banknotes issued in 1969: «THE DEPARTMENT OF THE TREASURY 1789». The teeth of the circle must be the same size and the same shape. The Treasury Seal is usually executed in bright green. It can also be red, but the Federal Reserve Bank seal is missing on the left side.

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The issue date is indicated by the word «series» and the year of actual printing of the banknotes (for example, 1990). One of the four letters of the Latin alphabet «A, B, C or D» may be present (for example, SERIES 1988 A).

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Each banknote, regardless of the category of the banknote, has a portrait of one of the outstanding US statesmen with the last name printed on it. The portrait is placed in an oval frame in the center of the front side of the banknote. The back side of US paper money is bright green and has certain designs.

Correspondence of portraits and images on the back of banknotes to the denomination of banknotes:   

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Federal Reserve notes have a special distinguishing feature — on the left side of the front of the note there is a circle printed in black ink, inside which the name of the Federal Reserve Bank that issued the note is printed in light letters along the edges. In the center of the circle, one of the letters of the Latin alphabet (from A to L) is printed in black ink, the number of twelve Federal Reserve Banks assigned to this bank. The same letter is in front of the serial number of this note. In addition, on the white space of the front of Federal Reserve notes, one of the numbers (from 1 to 12) is printed in four places, indicating the order of the above-mentioned letter in the Latin alphabet.

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Correspondences of the alphanumeric designations of the US Reserve Banks that issue banknotes:

For example, a Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta note will have the letter «F» in the left black circle, and the number 6 and the first letter of the banknote number will also be «F».