Chelsea counterfeit case illustrates that funny money is anything but

Ann Arbor Police Detective Laura Burke holds up two of the many counterfeit bills the department confiscated earlier this year.

File photo

If you have any cash left after holiday shopping, take a few bills out of your wallet and look at them. First of all, do they feel real to you? U.S. currency is printed on high-quality paper, and you can feel quite a bit of cloth fibers in it. If you look at the bill with a magnifying glass, you will see tiny blue and red threads in the paper.

Next, take a look at all of the new bills. The easiest way to spot a phony bill is to hold it up to the light and look for the president’s holographic image on the right side of the bill.

That image is embedded in the bill and should look like a smaller version of the president who belongs on the bill. The hologram will have the president’s face oriented so both images are looking in the same direction.

A year ago, some counterfeit $50 bills were printed on currency stock. Those bills had started their service as legitimate $5 bills. These counterfeiters were rather sophisticated and had taken the $5 bills and chemically washed all of the ink off the bills, then printed them to resemble a $50 bill.

The easiest way to spot those counterfeit bills was to examine the holographic image. Where there should have been the image of Ulysses Grant, there was the image of Abraham Lincoln. If you were to quickly look at the bill, you would have seen a bearded president that looked like a rather emaciated US Grant facing his own larger image. Closer examination would have revealed the image of “Honest Abe” on these bogus bills.

Another safeguard built in U.S. currency is a strip that runs from the top of the bill to the bottom of the bill and will read “USA (the number that corresponds to the denomination of the bill).” Different denominations have this strip in different parts of the bill, but you should be able to see it when the bill is held up to a light.

If you believe you have a counterfeit bill, take it to the bank or a police station so it can be examined. When Washtenaw County - and other - police agencies find counterfeit or suspected counterfeit money, they contact the U.S. Secret Service, whose job it is to protect our presidents and our currency.

Keep your loot safe. Lock it up, don’t leave it unattended, be aware and watch out for your neighbors.

Rich Kinsey is a retired Ann Arbor police detective sergeant who now blogs about crime and safety for AnnArbor.com.