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Is It Real?…Or Is It Counterfeit?-It's Real!
With all the attention counterfeiting has been getting- (off-set printing, color copies, new bills)-it was a surprise for the Department of the Treasury to come out with a memo that says recently reported "counterfeit" $1 bills are real!
Seems there have been reports all over the country about counterfeit one dollar bills. On the front, these bills are missing the check letter and quadrant number in the upper left side, there is no prefix letter in the face plate number in the lower right side, and on the back, the plate number is in the wrong place. All of the suspect bills (to date) bear Series year 1988A. To make it even more confusing, there are regular, genuine bills with the same 1988A on them.
Reports and queries started pouring into the Secret Service about the "counterfeit" $1 bills. And now they say they aren't counterfeit at all!
What we have been looking at are Web-fed Intaglio one dollar bills.
Never heard of them?
Well, neither had a lot of other bankers until the United States Secret Service finally put out a memo about them.
The U.S. Treasury in July of 1992 started disbursing the new, improved one dollar bills. It is produced by a new printing process at the Bureau of Engraving and Printing in Washington, D.C.
Instead of printing one side and then the other, the front and back are now printed in one operation. This new printing process is called Web-fed Intaglio after the new type of printing press used. These presses are able to print sheets of $1 bills more than twice as fast as regular presses.
However, before beginning the new runs, certain minor changes were made to the identifiers on the bills. They are noted above-and repeated here:
The check letter and quadrant number no longer appear in the upper left portion of the face of the note.
The face plate number in the lower right no longer has a letter prefix.
The back plate number is repositioned above the large letter "E" in the word "ONE".
All Web-fed style $1 notes to date bear Series year 1988A, located at the lower right of the portrait on the face of the bill.
Treasury reminds bankers to look for the red and blue fibers. (Yes, they're still there!)
And you might keep an eye open for the 1988A bills. With the uproar they've caused, they might become collector's items!
Copyright © 1993 Bankers' Hotline. Originally appeared in Bankers' Hotline, Vol. 3, No. 8, 1/93
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