Inspecting money : how to avoid negative bucks

The focus of the activity of the Inspection Laboratory in the past several years has been high-speed inspection of patterned, surfaces. The Bureau of Engraving prints money on a high-speed "web," which means that large sheets of money are being produced very fast. The question is raised of how to inspect for the print quality at those speeds. People will see either a blur or only a sample of the print. In this report, we use our past experiences to attempt to detail the inspection methods, hardware, etcetera, which would be needed to construct a hypothetical "Inspect-a-buck" system, and the problems that might be encountered along the way.