Shetlan, I can tell you unequivocally, and without a doubt that if you take two sheets of flash paper, print them, and laminate them with watered down elmer's school glue, and then treat them with lanolin that they produce a bill that feels almost exactly like the real thing, that if you carry it stuffed in your pocket for a week it's only worn down a bit, still completely passable though. The only thing I don't have nailed down with this method is that the flash bill doesn't burn as quickly or as cleanly as normal flash paper. Still I have no problem burning them in my hat, or wadding them up in my hand/ loading them into my igniter ring to produce fireballs from "money" I can also use this method to make a "money envelope" containing 2-3 more flash bills (inspired from Mark Wilson's "Complete Course in Magic" which was my first magic book) I use this all in my "worl'd poorest millionaire" street show, and am converting the routine to stage. It's quite fun. Anyway, my point being that this method is not theory at all. No, it is not quite suited to a large counterfeiting operation, though the basic method could be converted to such an endeavor. This method isn't actually expensive either, I mean, I order flash paper in bulk through the magic shop attached to my girlfriend's store, and yes, she gives me a very nice discount, but it wasn't that expensive to begin with. The cellulose paper that flash paper is made from, well I have no idea where to get it, but I'm sure if someone had the drive to do as I originally reccommended, calculate out the paper weight, halve it, and then actually go arround to paper suppliers then you'd deffinately find something. I live in New York, and when I did exactly that a couple of years ago and found exactly what I was looking for, and in roll form so I could contiuously print. I no longer have my old hard drive which had all of these sorts of specifics, otherwise I'd have posted them. Also since I am no longer using this method for anything other than my magic show I'm not especially motivated to do all of that leg-work for no gain.
To answer other questions, I always liked to print the security strip with MICR toner or ink, same stuff you use to print cheques so that they're machine readable, available at pretty much any large chain office supply store. For printing the OV portions, you can refill a cleaned out cartridge from an inkjet printer with clear base and a mix of dual tone OV pigment. You can do something simillar for printing any colour shifting part of any bill. When it comes to the "ghost image" on some new bills, simply print on the inside face of the paper before lamination, you can adjust the opacity in photoshop.
Thanks for the imput, and the kind words everyone.  |