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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