Half a croissant, on a plate, with a sign in front of it saying '50c'
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LASER etched blanks

Using LASER's instead of humans
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Currently, humans are used to carve metal plates into extremely elaborate designs with extremely fine details to prevent counterfeiting. The problem with this is that it takes a really long time, and the plate is broken into separate sections, where each artist works on their own piece (to prevent the individual from making their own bills). What I am suggesting is that instead of humans to do the carving, we use laser etching. This allows for even finer, more precise details that are completely impossible for a human to do. This will also make things a lot faster.

For coins, more details could be added and the dyes could be directly etched, instead of going through multiple reduction processes, which take days to complete.

The only problem with this is it would be taking jobs away from the artists.

Master Thief-117, Apr 30 2009

How paper money is made (yet more detail) http://origin.www.v...?moddate=2008-09-27
Hm, I guess my instincts were wrong, too. [jutta, Apr 30 2009]

LASER LASER LASER http://whatever.sca...e-on-laser-twitter/
[jutta, May 01 2009]

[link]






       I get it 21 Quest, I do. It is getting old, though. New policies can be inventions, even if they rely on components. The laser engraver is a part of a larger system that makes money in a new way. If he had used a previously unheard-of technology to print money, you would have said "how is a printing money an invention?".   

       Master Thief, here is what you do next time... instead of making money(or anything practical) the object of the invention, make it built in to the produce scale at the grocery scale, and engrave the weight on the actual fruit.   

       BAM. Croissant time.
fishboner, Apr 30 2009
  

       I'm confused. You all really think that current bank notes are still etched into metal by hand, rather than designed with the help of computers and reproduced using photographic processes?   

       [Later: Yep, apparently, even the US mint still uses human-created master dies. Yikes.]
jutta, Apr 30 2009
  

       Wow. The explanations given online really don't make any sense at all.   

       They seem to be talking about the difference between etching and methods like offset printing - as if they could not conceive of etching anything electronically (i.e. in order to copy another bill).   

       I wonder whether there is an actual technical difference between what can be laser-etched and what can be human-etched, or whether they haven't thought of it, or whether this is a policy question, or whether the printing template is so far removed from the original line etching of some president's head that it doesn't really matter how it starts; or whether, well, there's old Bob here, and that's really all he knows how to do, and we wouldn't want to make him sad now, do we.
jutta, Apr 30 2009
  

       I thought of this highly similar medical idea a few hours ago   

       wood with its microcorrugated woodgrain was measured n published as being more antibacterial than a smooth stainless or plastic surface suggesting that actual wood things were autosterilizing If it hadn't been published I would have doubted that a wiped wooden breadboard would be more antibacterial than a wiped plastic one   

       my idea of the theory was that the nanopointy wood caused cytodisruption   

       anyway I thought: They should use lasers to ultramicropattern stainless n plastic medical surfaces to make them more hygenic The High wattage laser could illuminate a hologram that like the picturizer holograms on a laser pointer drilled zillions of pointy things to give a woodlike texture to metal or plastic
beanangel, May 01 2009
  

       //do you really think nobody involved in the decision-making process has thought of automating the master-die process, too?//   

       Even if they had, would it even be their invention?   

       Step back, take a look at the whole treasury building, and the area around it. MasterTheif mentioned the security measure of dividing the plates between etchers.   

       How one organizes these highly unpredictable, intelligent components called humans, and integrates them into a dollar-making system involving lasers (and buildings, and laws, and penalties etc.) is the real innovation.
fishboner, May 01 2009
  
      
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