EDITOR’S CORNER
Australian money is supposed to be some of the hardest in the world to counterfeit.
I always thought that’s because it was printed upside down, but there’s another reason.
Our friends, the Aussies, devote an extraordinary level of detail to their currency and that presents counterfeiters with very difficult challenges in trying to reproduce it.
Except for the new Australian $50 bill.
Such is the level of engraving detail that a speech by the person depicted on it is reproduced on the bill.
And some sharp-eyed observer recently noted the word “responsibility” is spelled wrong. Not once, but three times.
Some very sharp-eyed observer. Or perhaps dedicated. The speech is microscopic. You wonder who was scanning an Aussie $50 with a microscope for fun.
Perhaps the same person who challenged Americans a number of years ago to find the names of 26 states on our five-dollar bill.
And yes, they are there.
On the front of our five-spot is, of course, Abe Lincoln.
Flip it over and on the back is an engraving of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C.
When the memorial was begun in 1917 there were 48 states in the union. (Just barely, Arizona and New Mexico had become states five years previously).
Names of those states were built into the frieze running along the top, 26 on the front and 22 on the back.
The bill shows only the front. Take a magnifying glass to it—if you have young eyes you might not even need that—and there they are, 26 state names.
Yes, Texas is one of them.
Speaking of coin lore, do you know why quarters and dimes have ridges?
One story I’ve heard is that those two coins were ridged so people could reach in their pockets and differentiate them from nickels and pennies by touch. (Nickels and pennies have smooth edges).
I never bought into that. Dimes and pennies, yes, they are pretty close to the same size but nickels and quarters are different sizes from each other altogether.
Besides, when was the last time you actually reached into your pocket for one coin?
Don’t we usually just haul out a whole handful of coins, then pick and choose the ones we need?
Also, the story of government money vs. counterfeiters is a long one but some innovations were made not to stymie counterfeiters but just “regular folks” trying some not-too-legal angles.
Coins used to be made out of the real stuff, gold and silver. It goes this way.
People used to shave off those edges, keeping them perfectly circular. If you could do that, most people would never notice the very slight difference in weight and size and after a couple of years you could have yourself a little pile of a precious metal.
I don’t think I buy that either. Sounds like a lot of work for some shavings.
My favorite counterfeiter story is one that happened here in good old Rockdale, a couple of decades ago.
An enterprising, but apparently lazy, young man produced a pretty good copy of a bill and tried to pass it at a convenience store.
But he only created one side. The other was blank.
I was told when the city’s magistrate was summoned the arresting officer had the bill on his desk and the would-be counterfeiter was sitting there in a chair.
The bill was turned over. All three of them burst out laughing.
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