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Comment by OskarS | Hacker News Reader

Here's a fun fact: I'm Swedish and have lived in Sweden my entire life, and I'm not entirely sure what my currency looks like. They changed almost all the coins and notes a few years back, after I had personally pretty much totally gone cash-less.

Without looking it up: I'm fairly certain the 1 kr coin is copper and looks sort-of like the half-krona coin used to. There's a new 2 kr coin, and they redesigned the 5 kr coin. At least one of them is, like, brass-looking, I think.

The twenty-kronor note is (I think) blue:ish and has Astrid Lindgren on it. I know Ingmar Bergman's on one one of the other notes, either the 100 kr one or the 200 kr one. I think the 200 kr one is, like, greenish. But I couldn't be sure. I don't know any of the other people on the notes, and am at best vague on what colors they are.

If you gave me a reasonably convincing fake 50 kr bank-note but with the wrong person on it, I would have no way of knowing.

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This is why I like polymer money. I have yet to hear of any fake plastic notes out there. One documentary said that buying that special plastic film is harder than getting military explosives.

I did hear about people passing paper printed fake notes instead of polymer ones, but you have to be at a whole new level of carelessness to be fooled by this one.

We have it in Romania too and it's great, very hard to tear and also waterproof.

Traditional cotton notes are waterproof and I've never torn one (but you could swap it at a bank if you did).

When I was a teen-ager, I had a bad habit of running into the ocean on a whim. Invariably, I had my wallet on me. I was always amazed that the banknotes never seemed affected, even though I knew they were made of cotton.

A dip in the ocean is much less harsh than the much more common environment of money left in a pants pocket when they go in a washer and dryer.

You had your wallet on you where? Presumably not in your hand, but in your pants. Your pants weren't affected much, either, even if they were also made of cotton. Why would you expect the banknotes to be different?

It was the 70's. So the pants were probably polyester! Ha!

'legacy' banknotes are mostly made from cotton, not wood pulp which gives them the strength to stay cohesive even when wet, much like your clothes in the washing machine.

How about bleaching low-value notes, and printing high-value designs on top of them?

In the UK, bank notes are different sizes depending on their value. So that goes a long way towards stopping that kind of thing.

Isn't it true that if a banknote is torn in two, you can go to the bank and have it replaced?

That's true in America too. (You have to have both halves in your possession, of course).

Anecdotally, you can do so without both halves, as long as the piece you have is clearly the majority of the bill.

I don't know either the relevant law or common institutional policies regarding that, though.

Banks might accept such more-than-half bills as a courtesy to their customers but ultimately it's the US Treasury that will take them and redeem them. If you have a bunch of partially destroyed notes, you should go to them.

http://bep.gov/services/currencyredemption.html

https://www.npr.org/2017/07/07/535920428/the-office-where-mu...

that's nowhere near as scaleable as "regular" notes that you can spend at any store without question.

I've seen people accept notes held together with scotch tape.

In China it's quite common to handle very grimy and nearly destroyed notes that are 10 RMB and under.

About ten years ago, when I was working at Loomis, we accepted damaged banknotes as long as you had two thirds of the banknote.

Physical size scales with banknote denomination (not linearly :P of course).

Within one currency. Presumably, the trick would be to take Australian $5, bleach, cut a few mm off one edge, and reprint to £5 notes.

£2.16 profit!

Don't they have clear windows?

new australian bank notes have an entire large vertical wavy transparent stripe with a hologram on top. one would assume VERY hard to change anything about it

$50 - https://www.lifehacker.com.au/2018/02/say-gday-to-australias...

also, all the transparencies are shaped differently

The polymer notes were invented as a response to fake bank notes (Australian $10 notes in fact).

Here’s an article on it http://theconversation.com/proceeds-of-crime-how-polymer-ban...

I've recently heard of fake "new" £10 notes in UK.

Example news story (I heard of it from a trusted acquaintance in a different region) - https://www.leicestermercury.co.uk/news/leicester-news/forge...

(British, live in Denmark.)

Last month, expecting I'd need much more cash than usual¹, I withdrew 2000kr. That meant I got a 1000kr note (1370SEK, $160).

This ended up being passed round most of my friends, including several Danish people in their 20s, who hadn't seen one before. That's not completely unreasonable.

What did surprise me was when they asked to look at the 500kr note. I think many younger Danes take out ~500kr, which the machine would give as 200+200+100kr, and use it for emergencies, i.e. buying weed.

¹ A small fair, with many foreign (especially German) traders. One had borrowed a MobilePay account, and muttered something in German like "crazy Danes with their fake money" when we paid with it.

This.

I'm also Swedish, and I even used to work in cash processing (at Loomis) 10 years ago. Now, after they've changed the way coins and banknotes look - I'm just as clueless as everyone else.

Usually you don't need cash, even when visiting small events.

For example, while visiting a neighboring city's historical event: - Paying for tickets: wireless debit card reader, outside on a temporary setup table under a tree. - Paying for a horse and cart ride: Mobile payment (Swish) - Paying for toilets at a restaurant (free for customers, but we didn't order food): SMS payment.

In many cases you are asked to pay by debit card or mobile, as nobody wants to carry around or handle a lot of cash. But at the same time, you usually can pay using cash - you just have to carry a lot of different notes and coins, as the vendor might not have any change.

Here's more fun facts from a non-swede who's lived in Sweden for a long time. I am currently in Berlin. I travelled by subway (paid by mobile phone) to get to the airport train in Stockholm (paid again by app on phone). I bought a can of soda - again with my phone (samsung pay with NFC, works almost everywhere now). I then boarded the plane by phone (never showed ID - some airlines dont ask for it for flights to Schengan countries).

Note, i never used my credit card once. Only my phone!

Then i landed in Germany...... (cash is king here!)

[edited for more detail]

Same in Canada! We got this cool plastic money with clear windows. I've handled it on occasion but I'll have physical cash maybe once a year. I don't remember what's on our money either.

When I was in Australia some 20 years ago, all the bills were like that too. They are also different colors and sizes to cater for disabilities. I had never seen money like that before (as a young numismatics enthusiast), and only saw plastic bills again recently with the new Canadian $20 bills.

I believe most countries that use polymer bills are actually licensing this "SecureNote" technology from Australia.

They even have braille.

>I don't remember what's on our money either.

You are missing a lot! I am now looking at your fiver full of hockey players! Can't get more Canadian; who cares about historic figures or architectural styles? ;-)

Huh, I thought the fiver had the Canada Arm on it, a.k.a. "some space shit" according to everyone else.

Here you go:

https://ymcaexchanges.files.wordpress.com/2014/12/five-dolla...

That's the old bill, from before they switched to plastic. The Canadarm is on the current $5: https://www.bankofcanada.ca/banknotes/bank-note-series/front...

Alas, we can no longer Spock our five dollar bills. https://m.huffingtonpost.ca/2013/08/26/spock-canadian-5-bill...

LOL. But the new $5 doesn't seem Spock-resistant either:

https://mightymega.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/spock_2-62...

Fiji has you beat with their $7 note commemorating their Rugby Sevens team: https://www.stuff.co.nz/sport/rugby/sevens/91780125/fiji-hon...

I moved to Sweden last year and in that time I think I’ve made two cash withdrawals, both in the first couple of months before I had a Swedish bank account set up. Since then (and armed with a Swish account), nothing. Like you I can’t remember what the physical notes look like. Probably about 10% of shops and bars advertise themselves as not taking cash, and every single place I’ve been too takes card for any normal amount of money (even though I did feel a bit ridiculous using my card for a 5Kr icecream at IKEA the other day).

> even though I did feel a bit ridiculous using my card for a 5Kr

Are you German ? ;)

Quarter German, mostly British, good enough a guess :) Actually, I’m am a bit surprised about the lack of contactless here. It’s definitely come along quickly even in the last 12 months, but it was pervasive in the UK. First time I used my phone to pay in ICA they looked at me like I was a wizard hacker.

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