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The One Dollar Counterfeiter

amusingplanet.com

71–80 of 152 posts

Re: The One Dollar Counterfeiter

#71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If $1 is $19 I am suprised more people didnt check that their $1 notes are legit back then. Story makes it sound like $1 was chump change.

Do you check the $20 bills the ATM spits out, or just stuff them in your wallet and spend them?

people compare them to the $20 bill it spat out last time

Re: The One Dollar Counterfeiter

#72
post #19

>He was also made to pay a fine of $1 I wonder if the cashier checked the bill closely when he paid it.

Maybe it was a test.

it would be impossible to rely on the test, the cashier could keep the fake dollar to frame it or sell it later, and chip in the real dollar themself.

Re: The One Dollar Counterfeiter

#73
post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you're reading way too much into that comment. Sometimes questions are just questions out of curiosity, not accusations of the opposite.

I'm surprised people have such a knee-jerk reaction to my question.

Maybe because it sounds like a question on a 10th grade exam. It’s demanding and didactic, both in framing the question and the form of the expected answer.

Re: The One Dollar Counterfeiter

#74
post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The fraud of passing off something of lesser value as the genuine article is the definition of counterfeiting.

But there is no such thing as a “genuine” $30 bill.

If you’ll allow yourself to go one step further in the pedantry, there is no such thing as genuine money either.

Re: The One Dollar Counterfeiter

#75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the state reserves some of the harshest punishments for counterfeiters This is empirically untrue [1]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Counterfeit_money#Penalties_by...

The number of countries where life imprisonment is available possible sentence for counterfeiting seems to confirm it having some of the harshest punishments.

One of the fastest ways to make a state powerless is to make the money they issue and use to pay for everything worthless.

Re: The One Dollar Counterfeiter

#76

If you want to know more, there is a much better and very entertainingly written series of articles about this, from a 1949 issue of the New Yorker: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1949/08/27/old-eight-eigh...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YcuDTEbR8CE. Mr 880, a movie loosely based on the case.

Re: The One Dollar Counterfeiter

#77
post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But there is no such thing as a “genuine” $30 bill.

If you’ll allow yourself to go one step further in the pedantry, there is no such thing as genuine money either.

There is if we agree that there is.

Which we have.

Re: The One Dollar Counterfeiter

#78

Is it possible that he might have spent almost $1 in materials and labor and allocated capital expenses on equipment ... to create each of these counterfeits. Attempting this today would probably surely cost that much in today's dollars? EDIT: on a second thought ..this almost feels like "proof of work" for currency :)

The US penny and nickel are the only bits of currency we use that cost more to produce than their face value.

Re: The One Dollar Counterfeiter

#80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Very interesting. It's probably because fewer people take the time to counterfeit $50s, $10s or $2s than anything else. What about $100 bills? In Argentina, if you have an older $100 bill, no one will take it. And apparently there's a roaring trade in fake $20s in Costa Rica, which I only learned at a casino there recently when I took USD directly out of an ATM and had it inspected by a pit boss in the same establish…

I’ve had USD rejected both for being too new and for being too old in various corners of the earth - different cultures seem to want their currency differently aged.

It is more an artifact of being cut off from the US mint/banking system. For a domestic US bank they can swap any worn currency for new stuff for free.

So as US currency degrades over time it slightly loses inter exchangeability in the third world.

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