63 Making Money

How easy has it been to produce counterfeit American currency? Much easier than you might suspect. Whereas in earlier times a good counterfeit required craftsmanship stilled in photographic and fine printing techniques, in the current computer can produce a very adequate copies. So common had counterfeiting become in over sea countries desirous of dollars, that there were 200 estimates that $3.2 billion in counterfeit currency would be in US circulation by the year began taking steps to safeguard American currency. Beginning with the $100 bill—the denomination most often targeted for counterfeiting is more difficult. The most conspicuous change was the new portrait; not only was Ben Franklin’s image changed and made larger. It was set off-center on the bill. And printed with ink that would blur if a bill is held up to watermark, is stamped into the currency paper, which can be made but not be reproduced by scanner or copier. Security threads, as built into the paper, were a final safeguard, filaments of yarn a few thousandths of an inch wide, these threads have identifying figures printed on them. A different filament is put into each denomination of money and set in a slightly different location.

Will these improvements also make it easier to stop counterfeiting altogether, er? Most likely not. But they will make it easier for anyone checking to identify and root out counterfeits.

63 伪造货币

制造假美国货币有多容易？比你想象的要容易得多。早年，制作高质量的假币需要精通摄影和精细印刷技术的手艺，但现在电脑就能制作出相当逼真的仿制品。在渴望美元的海外国家，伪造货币变得非常普遍，据估计，到相关年份时，美国流通领域会有32亿美元假币，因此当局开始采取措施保护美国货币。从100美元纸币开始——这个面值最常成为伪造目标，因此防伪难度更大。最明显的变化是新的肖像：本杰明·富兰克林的形象不仅被修改，还被放大，并且被放在纸币的偏离中心位置，所用的油墨遇水会模糊。水印被压印在货币纸张中，这种纸张可以制作，但无法通过扫描仪或复印机复制。纸张中内置的安全线是最后一道防护，这些线是几千分之一英寸宽的纱线细丝，上面印有识别数字。不同面值的货币会放入不同的细丝，且位置略有不同。

这些改进能让我们彻底杜绝伪造吗？大概率不能。但它们会让检查人员更容易识别和铲除假币。