Mass. firm adds razzle-dazzle to cash:Currency paper has high-tech protections
By Patrick G. Lee Globe Correspondent / June 28, 2010
DALTON —Giant, rumbling machines fill the factory, the sound of turning gears echoing off walls as they press, stretch, and spool sheaths of paper into what look like 4-foot-wide rolls of toilet tissue. But this paper will be used for redesigned $100 bills the Federal Reserve plans to issue in February — the next step in its constant quest to thwart counterfeiters.
Crane & Co., known better for its pricey stationery, runs the plant in a secluded swatch of the Berkshires. It is the only spot in the United States where the paper that winds up in wallets, purses, and cash registers is made, and Crane has been the sole maker of US currency paper — everything from $1 to $100 notes — for more than 130 years.
Counterfeiting has been a problem even longer, cropping up soon after the United States started printing its national currency. Today, the challenge has grown as cheap copiers and scanners make it easier to start small-scale counterfeit operations anywhere in the world, said Max Milien, a spokesman for the Secret Service.
“Economic times are hard, unfortunately,’’ he said. “People are willing to try anything.’’
The most advanced and costly technology in the new $100 bill is a three-dimensional security ribbon — manufactured by Crane in an undisclosed location outside Massachusetts — which is woven into the paper next to Benjamin Franklin’s portrait.
The blue strip, less than half an inch wide, contains more than a million, microscopic lenses on the surface. Each lens acts like a tiny projector, magnifying the ink images printed underneath. Together, the lenses produce two sets of images — bells and the number 100 — that move around and morph into one another as the paper is tilted.
Shifting images make it harder for counterfeiters to create forgeries, and the moving bells and 100s are easy-to-spot, easy-to-explain features anyone can check just by bending the bill back and forth.
