Since the first banknote was printed 700 years ago the first bank note forger was born. A menace to any country’s economy these worthless illegal notes will turn up in from time to time in anyone’s pocket.
With copying and printing technology becoming more advanced and affordable surely these forgeries would become nigh on impossible to spot?
Well read on to see some of the World’s Worst Fake Banknotes…
A quick trip to pre-Euro Germany and the amazing, wonderful 500DM note made by er adding a ‘0’ to the end of a ‘50’. Cunning.
In 2007 an international band of counterfeiters tried to introduce the shockingly bad £500,000 banknote. A bit of research would have led them to realise that the Bank of England has never issued a note with a face value higher than £1000 and those were withdrawn in 1943.
In 2009 counterfeiters were passing off £20 notes with Boy George replacing the Queen. Apparently one of the notes was taken by a Ryman’s stationers in Kent. The member of staff responsible was last heard saying to their boss: “Do you really want to hurt me?”
In Thailand in 2008 their equivalent to our £20 bank note, the Bt1000 (baht) note, counterfeiting was so rife the currency risked being seriously devalued. The fakes were easy to spot since they lacked text embossing but traders began to mistrust and refuse the notes.
In Scotland in September 2010 Alan Gibson was dubbed the world’s worst forger narrowly escaped a jail sentence – because his fake banknotes were so awful. Why? Well for a start all the serial numbers were the same…
No country is immune. Here is an example of a greatly forged Chinese bank note with plenty of errors.
The US dollar is one of the most forged banknotes in the world. Here is one which is not too bad at first glance but give it more than a cursory examination and it stands out a mile.
There’s plenty of merchandise-esque banknotes printed today usually based on pop stars, tv programmes and the like. Although not fakes and forgeries some could easily be passed off in a wad of real notes. Well perhaps not! I love this one.
Oddly enough in England forging money was classed as high treason and punishable by death. Back in the day in America Benjamin Franklin printed warnings right on the money itself: ‘To Counterfeit is Death’.
These offences carry a much more lenient punishment nowadays. Banknote forgery is set to carry on until we stop using paper money. And until then the World’s Worst will continue too…
Butch wishes his job was a licence to print money but he’s not doing too badly with his career in the music industry. After his work with the Red Room he’ll take more interest in Virgin Money.
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