Counterfeiting involves the creation of fake money, and it is the government's job to stay one step ahead of these counterfeiters. While ingenuity and skill were the main factors leading to successful counterfeiting in the past, recent improvements in digital scanners and printers have made counterfeiting much easier. In order to battle these new technologies, the American government has begun to add new anti-counterfeiting devices to America's money, such as security strips and watermarks. The government is also implementing new features in the digital equipment used to make the counterfeit bills. Digital copiers and printers recognize bills and prevent them from being copied. Paralleling the changes in currency technology, counterfeiters have changed demographics. Teenagers have recently become heavily involved in counterfeiting thanks to the ease with which bills can be made. It is a daunting task, but the treasury strives to stay advanced enough to thwart this ever present enemy.
Taking Cash for Granted
Imagine you've just spent a delightful evening dining at your favorite restaurant with a special someone. The bill comes out a little more than you expected, but who cares? A nice night on the town is priceless, right? Good thing you brought some money with you. After struggling a little, you place a staggeringly heavy three-hundred pound, granite donut next to the table, toss in a few small rock rings as tip, and leave with your date. As peculiar as this scene may seem, the inhabitants of Yap, a small island in the south pacific, still conduct business transactions with such stones. Called Rai, these stones are inconvenient to use and hard to get, as islanders harvest them from an island 250 miles away (Byler 3). Why would a culture have Rai as currency? The giant stones are incredibly hard to counterfeit. Fake stone rings are just as difficult to manufacture as the real thing is to quarry. Besides, the islanders place value on the effort needed to harvest these rocks, not just on the objects themselves.
In contrast, our dollars do not require such intensive labor to create, and therefore are easier to replicate. In the past, quality counterfeiting required vast amounts of skill and precision, but modern day technologies allow even the clumsiest of crooks to play the part of Rumpelstiltskin and turn paper into gold.
A Brief History of Currency and Counterfeiting
Money's origins can be traced back to the ancient civilization of Mesopotamia. Before using currency, Mesopotamians bartered or used certificates of ownership to perform business transactions. Five different tokens were used as trading materials (Pringle 54). Citizens traded these tokens with each other, and then redeemed the tokens for their specified values at a later time. With the development of cities, more products were readily available, requiring salesmen to carry up to 16 types of tokens for proper trading. Bartering with such a variety of tokens presented problems as traders only knew of an object's worth relative to other objects. For example, a pound of cheese was worth one half a pound of goat meat, or three pounds of grain, or sixteen strands of rope. The solution to this complex system lay in the standardization of currency. Small weights of silver replaced the token system, as people used them solely for trade. Higher class Mesopotamian citizens used coils of silver, which had distinct weights and dimensions, for their more expensive purchases (Pringle 55). These coils would set the stage for all of western civilization's future forms of currency.
Coins, although still in existence, are no longer the primary form of currency. Bills, or money printed on paper, have taken over as a far more practical form. Their construction makes them easy to carry and cheap to manufacture. The ease with which governments manufacture bills, however, also makes the paper bills easy to counterfeit. Counterfeiting of bills began early, with forgers taking the time to hand engrave templates and set up printing presses, although time has made counterfeiting much easier.
