A banknote counter or bill counter is a device designed primarily to accurately count a quantity of

banknote A banknote—also called a bill (North American English), paper money, or simply a note—is a type of negotiable instrument, negotiable promissory note, made by a bank or other licensed authority, payable to the bearer on demand. Banknotes w ...

s. Additionally, a banknote counter may sort banknotes into batches and check for damaged or

counterfeit To counterfeit means to imitate something authentic, with the intent to steal, destroy, or replace the original, for use in illegal transactions, or otherwise to deceive individuals into believing that the fake is of equal or greater value tha ...

notes.

History

The first automatic bill counting machines (or money counting machines) were introduced in the 1920s in the United States and were produced by the

Federal Bill Counter Company Federal or foederal (archaic) may refer to: Politics General * Federal monarchy, a federation of monarchies * Federation, or ''Federal state'' (federal system), a type of government characterized by both a central (federal) government and states ...

of Washington, D.C. These machines were designed to increase efficiency in tellers in the

Federal Reserve Bank A Federal Reserve Bank is a regional bank of the Federal Reserve System, the central banking system of the United States. There are twelve in total, one for each of the twelve Federal Reserve Districts that were created by the Federal Reserve ...

and reduce human error. The machine would stop once a set “batch” of notes was reached allowing a teller to insert a wooden block to keep batches separate. Modern counting machines use a technology developed by

Tokyo Calculating Machine Works Tokyo (; ja, 東京, , ), officially the Tokyo Metropolis ( ja, 東京都, label=none, ), is the capital and largest city of Japan. Formerly known as Edo, its metropolitan area () is the most populous in the world, with an estimated 37.46 ...

Shinagawa, Tokyo is a special ward in Tokyo, Japan. The Ward refers to itself as Shinagawa City in English. The Ward is home to ten embassies. , the Ward had an estimated population of 380,293 and a population density of 16,510 persons per km2. The total are ...

and introduced in 1962. It quickly dominated the market for increased speed and accuracy. In 1981 computerized friction note counters were introduced in the form of the

REI High-Speed machine Rei or REI may refer to: Arts and entertainment *Rei, a story arc of the anime ''Higurashi When They Cry'' *Rei, a shapeshifting godlike dragon in the Australian webcomic series ''Vainglorious'' *Rei I, II and III, episodes of ''Neon Genesis Eva ...

, which sped up note counting to 72,000 notes per hour and eliminated the need manual sorting and counting completely. This innovative Sorter machine could also sort notes according to their value and remove counterfeit or heavily damaged notes. Many of these features are present in today’s note counting machines, some of which can detect a note's

security features Security is protection from, or resilience against, potential harm (or other unwanted coercive change) caused by others, by restraining the freedom of others to act. Beneficiaries (technically referents) of security may be of persons and social ...

(e.g. magnetic ink,

ultraviolet ink Ultraviolet (UV) is a form of electromagnetic radiation with wavelength from 10 nm (with a corresponding frequency around 30 PHz) to 400 nm (750 THz), shorter than that of visible light, but longer than X-rays. UV radiatio ...

, magnetic strip, note density etc.) to identify counterfeit and damaged notes.http://www.google.com/patents?id=ROoJAAAAEBAJ Other extra features that facilitate everyday contact with cash may also be present.

Footnotes

{{Reflist Banknotes Counting instruments American inventions 20th-century inventions