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Meanwhile, the rest of the world is switching to plastic banknotes: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polymer_banknote https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polymer_banknot
by mapleoin 11y ago
Meanwhile, the rest of the world is switching to plastic banknotes: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polymer_banknote https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polymer_banknote
- teddyh 11y ago…except Europe.
- mapleoin 11y agoDepends on your definition of Europe. Romania fully switched in 2005.
- davb 11y agoWe're using them on £5 notes from some issuers in Scotland. And they'll be rolled out on all UK banknotes over the next few years.
- gadders 11y agoAn FYI for people that don't know (foreigners, London taxi drivers) - Scotland has several different banks which issue Scottish currency. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banknotes_of_the_pound_sterling#Scotland https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banknotes_of_the_pound_sterlin...
- Someone1234 11y agoI'm playing devil's advocate but a lot of the reason why places refuse to take Scottish notes is that in the early 2000s, the English notes had been updated with tons of security measures, while the Scottish notes had not, so forgers targeted Scottish notes (since they could produce very believable replicas) and the market got flooded with them. So for every Thus why the bridge series was introduced in 2007, to add much needed security features and to make Scottish notes respectable again.
- kuschku 11y agoThe new Europe series of the EURO uses plastic banknotes
- jmkni 11y agoNorthern Ireland was actually the first part of the UK to have these, they were introduced back in 2000 to celebrate the new millennium, you can still find them in circulation.
- AlecSchueler 11y agoCan you? I don't think I've seen one for maybe 10 years.
- jmkni 11y agoI had one a couple of weeks ago, next time I get one I'll hang onto it I think.
- pluma 11y agoI take it these would additionally be machine washable?
- ygra 11y agoNormal banknotes, being made of cotton, are also machine-washable.
- FreeFull 11y agoI once found a banknote floating in the river, it wasn't damaged in any way.
- hiharryhere 11y agoWhen I go swimming I put a $20 note in my board shorts wrapped around my id with an elastic band. I don't really take anything else with my so leaving my wallet buried in the sand on its own isn't a great idea. Cotton money gets all soggy and you can't really use it without drying it out. Plastic money is great for this... wipe it off and buy an ice cream.
- ourmandave 11y agoThe local pool snack bar will take wet bills (but the girl behind the counter makes a face all the same).
- FreeFull 11y agoYeah, I dried the money out before I used it to buy anything.
- pluma 11y agoFascinating. I wasn't aware of this, so I had to look it up. Apparently even the Deutsche Mark (which preceded the Euro in Germany) was made from "cotton paper" (i.e. 100% cotton fibres). American banknotes are apparently made from 75% cotton and 25% linen. I'm not sure how the different banknotes internationally and across history stack up in terms of durability but the newer Euro notes (the 5, 10 and 20 notes introduced in 2013, 2014 and 2015 respectively) are supposedly more durable than the older ones.
- nate_meurer 11y agoThe U.S. Treasury uses an obscure paper made of cotton and flax, specifically as an anti-counterfeit measure. Esquire did a fantastic article on this a little while back at http://www.esquire.com/news-politics/a24292/benjamin-hundred-dollar-bill-0913/ http://www.esquire.com/news-politics/a24292/benjamin-hundred...: "In the late 1980s, a new counterfeit hundred, the most perfect counterfeit yet made, began appearing in circulation. It looked identical to the real thing, betrayed visually, at least, under only the most rigorous forensic testing. (Some minor flaws were visible after enormous copies of the bills were made, but these were probably purposeful. Its makers didn't want to be suckered by their own handiwork.) Although the counterfeit came to America mostly on boats from gangs in China, it was eventually traced to North Korea, where it was believed to have been manufactured by the North Korean government on its own presses. Since then, new generations of the same counterfeit have appeared, including a big-head version, mimicking the redesigned hundred that entered circulation in 1996. This family of bogus notes has been given its own title, one that befits its almost mythical stature: the North Korean supernote." "Some stories about the supernote sound more like legend than fact — like its being laundered by a bank in Macao called the Banco Delta Asia, or several thousand of them somehow appearing overnight in Lima, threatening to tip over the entire Peruvian economy. But there remains one truth in the supernote's history that has never been forgotten: It was first detected at the Central Bank of the Philippines by a teller, given pause only by the same nebulous flaw that betrays the majority of counterfeits. It just didn't feel right."
- slyall 11y agoPlastic banknotes last forever. I just had a look in my wallet and I have ones from 2002 and 2004. The only look a little worn in a couple of spots. Photo attached :)