And in other counterfeit news...

Earlier today I dealt with someone on Friendster masquerading as "Gothic BC" (friends can see my previous post), and just now I got back from exchanging a $20 at the bank. On Saturday I took money out of one of the bank machines at the Royal at the corner of Georgia and Bute. Later that night at the club, when I went into my wallet to take out some money for a drink one of the bills glowed under the black lights almost like a plain white piece of paper. A normal bill is dark under black light except for a couple of spots. I showed it to a couple people around the table (Elaine, Nick, and Sandi, among others) and put the bill aside. Today I went into the same branch after work and tried to turn in the bill. The teller did not think it was counterfeit, but took it to the cash-cage for a second opinion. The person manning the cash-cage didn't think so either, yet neither one of them put it under a black light. When I worked for the Royal 15 years ago there was a small device with a black light in it kept in the cash cage for this purpose. We had similar devices at the cashier stations at the cinema I worked at. The teller tried to give me the bill back. I said that I would prefer a replacement so he gave me one. The counterfeit went back into circulation as far as I know.

There are really only two explanations, either someone is printing extremely good counterfeits or something unusual happened to this bill that caused it to glow evenly on across both sides of the bill in black light. Personally I think the former is more likely than the latter.