New Technology to Give Boost to Collectors
Micro-optics could turn collecting into a game.
In the January 30 Letters to the Editor in Numismatic News, a reader wrote that they had concluded stamp collecting is a dying hobby. Stamps are seldom used on letters anymore. For that reason, our attention is rarely drawn to them. No wonder encouraging new collectors to the hobby of stamps is a problem.
A majority of the financial transactions made by the general public no longer involve cash—specifically bank notes. Various forms of electronic payments appear to be replacing cash as the favored form of payment. The difference between stamp and bank note collecting is that there is no indication that bank note collecting is going away. Bank note collecting could still use a boost, some sort of attention-getter to encourage new collectors.
Crane Paper produces the paper used to print our bank notes at the Bureau of Engraving and Printing. The Crane website recently published comments by Sam Caper of their Research and Development department, where Caper says, “The big question for me is how we make the technology really engaging for people.” His answer is to employ what Crane calls micro-optics technology. According to Cape, “Crane Currency is exploring the possibility of ‘games’ on bank notes. When you tilt the note the right way--you will get a visual reward and thereby know that you’re holding a genuine note in your hand.”
If you can get people to start paying attention to the bank notes in their pockets just as circulating commemorative quarters encourages coin collecting, drawing more attention to that green folding stuff in our wallets could favor bank note collecting as well. Bank note values remain reasonably steady, but if Crane’s technology were to be utilized, all this might change.
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