"It has recently come to the attention of the Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA) that shredded banknote paperweights sold at the HKMA Information Centre contain pebbles to make them heavier and enhance their function as paperweights. Therefore, the number of shredded banknotes inside each paperweight falls short of the approximate number stated on the paperweight label."
@jonty Surely they record the serial numbers of notes in circulation and notes removed from circulation? And cashing a defaced note can only be done at the central bank? In which case they’re guaranteed to check the serial number and attempting to cash would raise a few eyebrows.
@TomF Given they show that complete notes are in the shreddings it's more likely that the person who shredded them also packed the cylinders and just made off with complete notes tucked into their underpants
@jonty
So wait ... I think the most interesting fact is actually this:
> This cylinder only contained 82.57/138 = 60% of the shredded
banknote pieces that the label had claimed. Although this issue
is not the focus of this paper, it appears that the Hong Kong
Monetary Authority has broken the law
In other words: Someone stole some bank notes before shredding, then filled the container up with stones to make up for the lost weight?
A nice little profit - even the "full" ones were missing 56 notes, which means they were making off with a minimum of $56,000 HKD ($7000 USD) per cylinder!
@michaelgemar@nev Doesn't need to be convincing - the paper cites The Association of Commercial Banknote Issuers: "banks will only reimburse you with the face value of a damaged banknote if you still have at least half of the banknote and visible serial number".
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