The U.S. Treasury Department denies that there are any secret anticounterfeiting gimmicks in currency artwork. Many people think otherwise. For some reason, the most popular hunting ground for anticounterfeiting devices—or clues to some unspecified conspiracy—is the picture of the Lincoln Memorial on the back of the five-dollar bill.
For instance, there’s the “secret number.” Look in the bushes to the left of the steps leading up to the Memorial. The pattern of shading seems to spell out a three-digit number: 372. The numerals are dark against a lighter background. The 3 has an exaggerated lower stroke; the 7 has a strong downward serif at the left end of the horizontal stroke. The shadows in the bushes on the right form no coherent pattern.
Once you see the 372, it’s hard not to see it. Persistent rumors allege that the number must have some significance—but stop short of explaining just what purpose a barely legible, unchanging three-digit number could serve. The number is too coarse to be a useful anticounterfeiting device. A counterfeit bill so grainy as to smear the secret number would certainly have a funny-looking Lincoln on the other side. The Treasury Department doggedly maintains the number is a mere accident of engraving.
No accident are the near-invisible names of twenty-six U.S. states in the same engraving. Sucker bet: Get someone to wager five dollars that North Dakota is not mentioned on U.S. currency. You will need a magnifying glass to collect.
The state names are in two rows. The larger, bottom row of names is on the frieze above the tops of the twelve columns. Directly above each column is a roundish ornament suggesting two intersecting circles. These ornaments separate the eleven state names in this row. From left to right the names read (in order of admission to the union): DELAWARE PENNSYLVANIA NEW JERSEY GEORGIA CONNECTICUT MASSACHUSETTS MARYLAND CAROLINA HAMPSHIRE VIRGINIA NEW YORK. Each letter is less than half a millimeter high. With good lighting and a fresh bill, persons of excellent eyesight can just read the names. The outlines of the letters are incomplete because of the small scale.
An even finer row of fifteen states appears on the frieze on the upper, indented part of the Memorial. These names are on the lower, less ornamented section of the upper part, just below the smooth horizontal molding. They read: ARKANSAS MICHIGAN FLORIDA TEXAS IOWA WISCONSIN CALIFORNIA MINNESOTA OREGON KANSAS WEST VIRGINIA NEVADA NEBRASKA COLORADO NORTH DAKOTA. These names are virtually impossible to read unless you use a magnifying glass and follow the list. Depending on bill wear, some states may be illegible even with magnification.
The names appear on the Lincoln Memorial in Washington; any detailed picture of the Memorial must contain them. It is not clear if the engraver realized that they could be used as a check against counterfeiting. Because the names are almost invisible on a legitimate bill, they aren’t likely to show up well on a photographically reproduced counterfeit. Of course, the checker must realize how faint the names can be on a real bill.
Still another object of suspicion is the funny shadow on the Memorial steps. It draws attention even though it could hardly serve any anticounterfeiting purpose. The peculiar shadow—that of the left stair guard and its torchlike ornament—seems to be much longer than it should be. The angle of sunlight can be judged from the shadow of the top of the Memorial, behind the leftmost columns. If a line parallel to this line of shadow is drawn from the top of the bowl or torch on the left stair guard, it intersects the steps much closer than the far end of the engraved shadow. Furthermore, the right stair guard doesn’t cast any shadow on the bushes. Geometrically correct or not, the shadow would be easily duplicated in any counterfeiting process.
What do Treasury agents really look for on a suspected counterfeit? Most published sources say the eyes of the portrait are the best places to look. The eyes may not be any more susceptible to poor printing, but the right portion of the brain is quick to pick up on any slight modification in a familiar face. Another trick uses a hair-thin line that appears on the front but not the back of the five-dollar bill. (It is also on the front and back of one-, ten-, and twenty-dollar bills.)
Look at the large 5s in the upper right and upper left corners of the front of the five-dollar bill. Just inside the margin of the 5s is a fine dark line. Normally the line is sharp and entire. The fineness of the line makes it difficult to reproduce. It almost always comes out with parts of the line faded or missing. This scarcely changes the basic look of the bill, but if you know the line should be entire, it is a simple check. A faded line on a bill that otherwise seems unworn is particularly suspicious.
The remarkable part of the one-dollar bill is the Great Seal of the United States (the two circular emblems on the back). Some see in the seal evidence of a Masonic conspiracy. At any rate, the pyramid with the eye above it is an obvious nod to Freemasonry. (The truncated pyramid represents the unfinished Temple of Solomon; the eye represents the Grand Architect of the Universe.)
In 1954 University of Texas doctoral candidate James David Carter wrote a dissertation (Freemasonry in Texas: Background, History, and Influence to 1846) that summarized further rumored significance of the Great Seal. It is claimed that the eagle on the seal has thirty-two feathers in its right wing and thirty-three feathers in its left. The thirty-two feathers symbolize the thirty-two Scottish Rite degrees (earned titles) of Freemasonry. There is also a thirty-third honorary degree, which accounts for the thirty-three feathers. The eagle’s nine tail feathers correspond to the nine degrees of the York Rite. “E Pluribus Unum,” on the eagle’s banner, is a Masonic motto. Above the eagle’s head are thirteen stars, representing the thirteen colonies but arranged to suggest a Star of David. King David figures into Masonic legend. The glory around the thirteen stars is calibrated with alternating long and short marks, suggesting the twenty-four divisions of the Masonic gauge (ruler).
Not all these claims check out. The thirty-third feather is elusive. There are three rows of feathers on each wing. The outer row on each wing has seventeen feathers. The middle row seems to have fifteen feathers on each wing. Together, that makes thirty-two feathers for each wing. The feathers in the inner row are lighter and hard to count. There seem to be about twelve inner feathers on each wing, which would not help achieve thirty-three in any case.
There are indeed nine tail feathers, and the stars do form a Star of David. But there are twenty-eight, not twenty-four, divisions of the glory.
Another Masonic symbol of sorts is on the front of the one-dollar bill. George Washington was a Mason and is venerated by American lodges—as are fellow Masons (and Presidents) Monroe, Jackson, Polk, Buchanan, Andrew Johnson, Garfield, McKinley, both Roosevelts, Taft, Harding, Truman, and Ford.
U.S. greenbacks are a cinch to counterfeit compared to many foreign currencies. Not only do foreign currencies carry watermarks (a valuable anticounterfeiting device the U.S. Treasury has declined to use), but they also sport various high-tech gimmicks.
Buried inside the Scottish pound note is a strip of microfilm. Across the top of the front of the one-pound note is written “The Royal Bank of Scotland Limited.” The microfilm runs vertically through the “n” in the word “Bank.” If you hold the note up to a light and examine the strip with a magnifying glass, the film is seen to spell out the initials of the Royal Bank of Scotland: RBS.
Israeli currency has an opaque magnetic filament that is said to spell out the name of the central bank magnetically, in Morse code.
The Day-Glo colors on many Third World currencies are there for a reason. Bahamian money, for instance, has a “prismatic, background”—a delicate pattern of conch shells that grades from turquoise to lilac to pink to orange to gold. A counterfeiter trying to reproduce the pastel tones on a color copier runs into trouble. Fiddle with the color adjustments as he might, at least one of the colors fails to reproduce.
Queen Elizabeth II’s hair has been a source of notaphilicrumors in the Commonwealth nations. The 1954 issue of Canadian dollars contained a remarkably convincing devil’s face in the Queen’s hair, just to the right of her earring. The portrait was retouched after public discovery of the face. Now the devil’s-face dollars are virtually uncirculated (collectors hoard them). The face was claimed to have been the work of an antiroyalist engraver. The current portrait of the Queen on British pound notes has what may be interpreted as a panting Pekinese dog. It is also in the hair, on the right side, directly in line with the Queen’s eyes.