Half a croissant, on a plate, with a sign in front of it saying '50c'
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Counterfetti Gun

Counterfeit money tester / confetti cutter / counterfetti launcher gun
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Need I say more?

Okay. You may have seen the counterfeit bill detectors that can determine legal tender legitimacy chemically. They are a simple felt tipped marker that indicate fakes with black marks. (In the USA)

This is step 2

Once the clerk gets a counterfeit result of their test, they reach under the counter and get their Counterfetti Gun. The bill in suspect is loaded through the back of the gun, tested electronically to conclude whether or not it’s authentic or not and is then either ejected whole if genuine, or shredded and launched if counterfeit.

The process would go like this: customer lays a suspicious looking legal note on the counter. The clerk get out his pen and gets black marks when testing. Next he gets out his Counterfetti Gun, turns it on a loads the note. When the fakeness is detected, the shredder churns out bits of paper into the air pressure tube launcher and fires the bits into the air, the bits slowly falling on the counterfeiter.

evilpenguin, Aug 21 2007

United States Secret Service http://www.secretse.../money_detect.shtml
How To Detect Counterfeit Money [baconbrain, Aug 21 2007]

[link]






       Creative [+]. What inspired this?
acurafan07, Aug 21 2007
  

       [acrua] My sister owns a small store and constantly gets fake bills, proven fake by the special pen. After getting the conterfeit reading, she always has to fight to convince the person its fake and that they can't spend it. This circumvents the fight and completely embarasses the counterfeiter.
evilpenguin, Aug 21 2007
  

       I'm sure they have to turn the money over to the gov't and what is worse, the person spending the bill (in a lot of cases), is not the actual counterfeiter, but has been passed the bill in another transaction.
xandram, Aug 21 2007
  

       If a bill has already failed the test, it's counterfeit and it is unnecessary to test it again.   

       Tidbit: Some of the best counterfeit bills have been produced by the CIA and blamed on North Korea.
nuclear hobo, Aug 21 2007
  

       [xandram] Where I live there many ignorant people. When these ignorant people try spending thier fake money, they will fight with you to prove its real, even though the marker says otherwise. This settles everything, fast.
evilpenguin, Aug 21 2007
  

       Those marker pens are themselves a fakery. What's in them is simply iodine, about 2 cent's worth of drugstore iodine. The iodine turns dark when it combines with starch, as you may remember from your basic chemistry.   

       Cheap paper, such as copier paper, contains a bit of starch to hold the wood fibers together and make it smooth. American money paper is made of cotton fibers, and is processed to hold together without starch and is pressed to be smooth.   

       So an iodine pen is testing the paper to see if it may be copier paper instead of proper money paper. And that's all it does, detect fake bills run off a color copier--which look fake anyhow.   

       The American Secret Service has gone to great lengths to make copier-counterfeits easily see, with fine markings and all. Look at the web site (link). Notice that they do not say a damn thing about the usefulness of iodine pens. There are reasons for that.   

       An iodine pen will NOT react if the paper used to make a counterfeit is from a lower-denomination bill that has been bleached, if the counterfeiter has found some no-starch paper, if the fake bill has been coated with hairspray, or if the counterfeiter was at all professional about his work and has ever heard of iodine pens.   

       The iodine pens will mark a genuine bill as a fake if it has been sprayed with starch, accidentally washed in laundry with starch, carried in the pocket of a starched shirt, handled by a person who works with starch or is eating a potato, or if it is a potato.
baconbrain, Aug 21 2007
  

       Intresting, Bacon. Guess your not fryed at all.
evilpenguin, Aug 21 2007
  

       [baconbrain] and HB. What are the best ways to detect conterfeit (US) bills?   

       I read what [bb] wrote again, and realize that there's got to be a better way to tell. Open question, would like some help.
evilpenguin, Aug 21 2007
  

       So where can I get one of these iodine pens? After all, if the shopkeeper thinks I look so nefarious that he needs to test whether my money is fake, it's only fair that I can retaliate by testing the change he gives me.
Mister Sketchly, Apr 25 2008
  

       New idea: bills coated in alkali metals so that, if an iodine pen is used, it instantly reacts violently with the bill to form halogen salt.
DrWorm, Dec 15 2010
  

       It would be poor form to automatically destroy the bill. I've seen people get a bogus bill from a bank, attempt to use them at another business, have the business detect it, and have the bank sheepishly replace it.
normzone, Dec 15 2010
  
      
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