Malaysia 50 Ringgit - Extra Digit in Serial Number

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This interesting 50 Ringgit piece landed on my table some weeks back. It's not mine but I was asked to take a look at it. Here's the high resolution photo of the reverse  :

Fig. 1 : Malaysian RM50 Ringgit, Reverse

Can you see the very faint extra digit on the bottom right?

For those who collect fancy number banknotes, they will know that the only way the digit at the back can only happen when the serial number reaches ten million or 10000000. And as far as I know for that last piece in each prefix, the last digit "0" is manually inserted, not printed by the numbering machine. So there is absolutely no way an extra digit is going to appear in the location above, what more it is also misaligned; the last digit is always a zero, not eight.

So at the first glance this piece looks suspicious already!

Now if you check the last digit really up close, here's what you'll see :

Fig. 2 : Comparing the 2 digits of "8" under a microscope

The one on the left is the last digit and the one on the right is another "8" for the same banknote. Notice the difference in the height and width?

That's the dead giveaway that the extra "8" is added after the banknote left the factory.

So folks, please be careful when you come across any such "error notes".

Happy Collecting !

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Banknote ink transfer errors

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A collector from Johor sent us an interesting piece last week. This is a fine example of an ink transfer of the obverse on to the reverse of a Malaysian 1976-81 50 Ringgit banknote signed by bank governor Ismail bin Ali (Pick# 16 / BNM-B16 / KNB16 ). This piece was printed by Bradbury & Wilkinson of Surrey, England.

Fig 1: Ink transfer to the reverse of the 50 Ringgit banknote

As you all know the portrait of the Agong (or King) is suppose to be on the obverse :

Fig 2 : The obverse of the same banknote

And how can such incidents happen during the printing process? Here's how : below is a simple illustration of the normal printing process, in which the printing plate for the portrait is a the top drum (Drum A) and as the paper goes in between the drums, the plate on drum A is pressed against drum B and the image of the portrait gets transferred to the paper.

Fig 3 : Normal printing process

Now image transfer happens when there is a momentary break in the paper feeding and as a result the image on drum A gets transferred to Drum B, as shown below :

Fig 4 : Momentary break in paper feed, image of top drum is transferred to bottom drum

And when the paper feed resumes, the wet ink on drum B gets printed to the bottom of the same paper. The image transferred will fade as more paper gets fed into the printing drums :

Fig 5 : Ink with image on drum B is transferred to the back of the paper

The image on drum A is a negative, when transferred to drum B, it will be a positive and final transfer to paper will result in a negative image.

Hope this will provide some clarity on how such ink transfer can happen when banknotes are being printed.

Happy Collecting !

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Fake error note : Malaya British Borneo 1961 10 Dollars

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One thing about collecting error notes is that it is fraud with many dangers. We had one such case recently.  A collector who recently acquired a piece of famous "kerbau" 10 Dollar error note ("kerbau" is Malay for buffalo) and he asked me to take a closer look at it and let him know what I think. Here's the high resolution scan  :

Figure 1 : Malaya British Borneo 10 Dollars 1 March 1961, Pick #9

The bottom right serial number appears to have been over printed i.e. the "9" has been over printed with a "0".

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A Malaysia 11th Series 1 Ringgit Misaligned Cutting Error (MisCut), or is it?

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A collector from up north sent me an interesting banknote to grade. It is an 11th series Malaysia 1 Ringgit note, signed by BNM Governor Zeti Akhtar Aziz. A first glance it does look like a very uncirculated piece with very good eye appeal.

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The Malaysia 12th Series 10 Ringgit Black Rafflesia : The Controversy & The Facts

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The past 2 days has seen a lot of sudden buzz around the Malaysia 12th series 10 Ringgit banknote that has a different color Rafflesia on the reverse. This interesting event was triggered by Dickson Niew's blog article. Dickson, the prolific numismatist cum blogger (Did I get that right Dickson?) provides an interesting insight into the origins of the mysterious "Black Rafflesia", commonly referred to as the "BR" note in social media circles. The article can be found here.

The note in question ....

This note has been a subject of much discussion on local social media groups on numismatics since the second half of 2014.  Much of the controversy revolves around the issue on whether it is a genuine piece or a "post-mint-job".

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