Fake Errors

Unfortunately, there are a lot of people being duped out there. What makes matters worse is that the sellers are often guilty of fraud (that is, they're the ones creating these 'errors') or of simple greed (as when someone sells fake errors even after I've notified them that their notes aren't real errors). More annoying is that eBay simply doesn't care; I've alerted them on several occasions and have only received form-emails that led to nothing.

WRONG COLOR INK

Frankly, these errors just don't exist. The mint would not likely use the wrong ink by accident, and it certainly wouldn't happen repeatedly in different denominations and different series. I checked out the recent sales by coinsandnotesexpress, and nearly half of the 35 were bogus yellow seal errors netting the seller over $500. This is really just a case of buyer bestupid. If you can use the internet to buy bills on eBay, you can also research whether such bills can exist. The same seller also has some $2 bills with orange seals instead of red. What a coincidence!

MISCUTS


This error is so obvious that it's amazing anyone falls for it. Basically, if a bill is miscut in the exact same way on the front and back, it's simply been cut that way by someone who bought a sheet of notes (usually 32 notes, tho possibly a smaller group from the mint). These notes cost no more than about twice their nominal value, so you could get 24 such phonies from a 4x8 sheet of bills. For fake $1 bills, their actual value, then, is approximately $2. The note shown above has a buy-it-now price of $70 to go with the sob story of how the seller is forced to liquidate his stuff because of the recession.


Here is an 'error' that is truly impossible and which should have seemed suspicious to the six different people who bid on it. One way to tell it's fake is that its serial number starts with 99. That's because after 1981, the BEP started selling sheets of notes to the public, but those sheets only start with 984 and higher. Another clue is that this type of cutting is nothing like the way bills are really sliced by machines (not by hand, like this one). It has a circulated appearance, meaning only that the seller took it around in his pockets for a few days before putting it up for sale.

INSUFFICIENT INK on 2ND PRINTING

This is a type of error that really does occur, but there are also ways to fake it, as by using solvents and even micro-abrasion. I'm guessing that it's better to try this on a circulated note in order to mask the scuff marks, but that raises an important question: Who in their right mind would not notice such a striking bill and simply take it out of circulation? In other words, this error is highly unlikely except in excellent condition. I bought one such note on eBay but sent it back to the seller because it clearly had undergone some treatment; it just didn't feel right. It felt like an old shirt.

I think the seller turned around and tried selling it again, and he didn't do well in either case, so it hardly seems worth the effort. It's quite possible that he bought the note from someone and then, not knowing it was phony, tried to sell it on eBay.


The one above is a different note of this type of probably-fake error:
$1. Series 2003a. Condition: VF. 9 bids. $32.40. Date: 4/26/10


INSUFFICIENT INK on 3RD PRINTING

This one is probably a lot easier to fake, and spot, than the type mentioned above. In this case, the creator of the fake has simply caused the black overprint to appear under-inked. Since the district numbers are fully dark, there is little chance that this error is real. This particular $2 bill didn't find any takers for $49, and I'd like to think that this is because the error is so phony, but clearly that thinking is too simplistic. Most likely there is a threshold for intelligence that cuts off at a certain dollar value. For this type of error to fool someone, it would have had to be cheaper. I'm guessing it would have sold for $30. Above that amount, and the more savvy buyers are dissuaded because their gut tells them that the bill is no good and the naive buyers are dissuaded by the price.

OFFSETS

Offset errors are cool, but these days, thanks to color printers, they're a lot easier to fake. This one, however, is so patently obvious a fake that only a moron would be fooled by it. The thing is, there is no way that the supposed offset would be (a) forwards, rather than mirror image, (b) at that angle, and most importantly, (c) a different color ink. It doesn't help things that the same seller hornswoggled two other buyers with almost identical notes during the same week. He made over $200 with nothing more than $11 in currency, a photocopier, and some small auction fees.

$1. Series: 2008. Condition: XF. 1 bid. $77.37

3rd PRINT SHIFT


This error might be even more obvious than the fake offset errors above. What's so priceless about this one is how the little 12s are correctly situated while the black treasury seal is supposedly skewed way right. In fact, anyone can tell that the seal was erased (or scraped away); the seller then printed another one elsewhere on the bill.