COUNTERFEIT BILLS ARE REAL MCCOY

Seen any funny-looking $1 bills lately? No need to rush to turn them in. Cape Girardeau police say the bills which began popping up around the Cape Girardeau area this weekend may look a little strange, but they're authentic.

Despite a scare among businesses and banks that the bills were counterfeit, police say they've had them analyzed and they're the real thing.

"The point here is that they are actually good bills, but a lot of people are thinking they are counterfeit because they look a little different," said Cape Girardeau Police Sgt. Carl Kinnison.

"We want to let people know the Federal Reserve made a change in that particular series, but they're authentic."

Police were bombarded with inquiries about the bills over the weekend and Monday, he said.

Kinnison said some of the bills turned in to police were sent to the U.S. Secret Service laboratory for analysis. The agency reported back that they are authentic.

Rich Beardsley, a manager at Rhodes 101 convenience store on north Kingshighway, said the bills have been showing up at the store since Friday. He said when store employees noticed there was something different about the bills, they held them back.

"I've never seen $1 bills like that before," said Beardsley. "We kept a few, but once we found out they weren't counterfeit, we started passing them out again."

According to police, the bills look like other $1 bills except:

All of the bills found so far are of a 1988 F series printed at Federal Reserve Bank No. 6 in Atlanta, Ga.

The front plate number on the bill does not include a letter.

The back plate number is on the upper right side instead of the lower right side.

There is no number on the front left side.

Some say the texture of the bills is thicker than usual and the printing is darker than normal in some places.

Beardsley said the arrival of the "fraudulent" bills "caused a little excitement" at his store.

"It added a little fun," he said. "Kept the day interesting."

But he said because the bills were of such a small denomination, he wasn't entirely convinced they could be fake.

"I would think it would cost more than $1 to make (counterfeit) $1 bills," he said.

Kinnison said it's extremely rare that a $1 bill would be artificial. Counterfeiters usually print bigger denominations, he said.

"Rarely if ever does anyone pass counterfeit $1 bills," he said. "It's just not profitable. In fact, the Secret Service agent we talked with said in 23 years, he'd never seen counterfeit $1 bills. It's just not done."

Kinnison said the $20 bill is the most likely to be faked.