3D printing with metal will revolutionize coin counterfeiting.

[randomness]

There have been real advances in 3D printing with metal lately. At some point it's likely that this will require changes in circulating coinage.

According to the Royal Mint, 3% of pound coins in circulation are fake. I got my first fake pound coin--one that I identified as such, at least--a couple of weeks ago. (I'll post photos when I get a chance.)

In the modern world, where the metal value of circulating coinage has little relation to its face value, counterfeiting to capture the difference becomes attractive. Once a circulating coin has a high enough face value, it starts to be worth counterfeiting. Empirically, that value appears to be somewhere above $1, as the pound and two euro coins are both among the most counterfeited coins.

Circulating coins aside, coin collecting has in recent years been dealing with a wave of fake coins produced in China for the collector market. While it hasn't been particularly cost-effective to make fake American coins for circulation, it has definitely been worthwhile to fake collector coins.

In the same way modern laser and inkjet printers have made it necessary to incorporate new security features to paper (and polymer) money, 3D printers will drive the adoption of security features to circulating coins. It may also drive the incorporation of security measures like the EURion constellation recognition features into 3D scanning and design software.

Comments

[cerebralpaladin.livejournal.com]

Huh. This is surprising to me, because I wouldn't have thought that the gain from counterfeiting coins would be worth it, for the same reason that counterfeiting of low-denomination bills isn't common. (Fake coins for numismatic purposes doesn't surprise me--that's much the same as faking antiquities, just often with less antique in it. :) )

Thanks for sharing! I look forward to seeing your photo of the fake. OOC, what did you do with it? And how could you tell? (The latter may be better answered with the photo.)

[r-ness.livejournal.com]

Thanks for sharing!

Sure. I got the fake not long ago. Then over the weekend I watched a friend's 3D printer in action. So the post kind of emerged from that.

I look forward to seeing your photo of the fake. OOC, what did you do with it?

My understanding of UK law is that I'm allowed to keep it, so that's what I'm doing. It makes a good conversation piece. (It's an offence to attempt to pass it as a real pound, of course.)

And how could you tell? (The latter may be better answered with the photo.)

Yeah, the photos really will reveal all. It's not a very good counterfeit, but it passes the quick glance people give coins received in change.

That I think explains why it pays to pass counterfeit coins if the face value is high enough: people don't really pay as much attention to coins as they do to banknotes. Moreover, modern banknotes incorporate a variety of security features, many of which are checked. Coinage often gets passed around without any real examination until they hit a vending machine. Even then it's possible to use an alloy which will fool the machine and still be cheap enough to provide a large profit.

I'll try and get images this week.

[cerebralpaladin.livejournal.com]

Yeah, coins that fool vending machines seem like a key part of the strategy. One of the hard parts of a counterfeiting scheme is how do you pass enough notes to actually make it worthwhile, but not in a way that gets you caught? My parents got a counterfeit note a year or two ago, that appears to have been used as the change in a parking lot--charge $10, keep the real $10s and $20s, make change for $20s with fake $10s, ~$10 profit per car--but that put a lot of counterfeit money into the same local vacation spot, which drew the Secret Service. Ability to use the counterfeits without human interaction is a big deal.

And you're right about the lack of attention. I could easily get passed counterfeit coins without noticing--I've had the experience of only realizing later that I got Canadian coins in change, and that's pretty obvious. Hard to imagine not noticing e.g. a Canadian $5 bill.

[r-ness.livejournal.com]

I could easily get passed counterfeit coins without noticing

According to an article whose URL I have annoyingly now lost, one of the coin counterfeiting rings was introducing fakes directly to customers at shops with a high turnover of coinage.

So yeah, taking advantage of lack of attention. But they did get caught.