The Chinese were the first to use cellulose fibers to produce a lightweight analogue of metallic money. Paper is used for the same purpose today. Of course, the complexity of the technological process of producing paper money has increased significantly, modern money paper is not at all what was used in China or any other country 100-200 years ago …
Linen and cotton are usually used for the production of banknotes. The cellulose content in the final product is about 95-97%. The production process begins by loading cotton (we are talking about several tons of cotton fibers) into the boiler. Here the raw material is kept under very high pressure. After that, the finished mass of fibers is poured into a reservoir, where clarification and cleaning are carried out.
After that, the mass is subjected to pressing, placed in softeners. The next step is to add a special paint that changes the shade of the still wet paper. At this stage, the creation of recognition watermarks is also in progress (more on them below).
The sheets with protective fibers and watermarks are sent to the dryer, after which the paper is rolled into rolls. Each roll can weigh several tons.
In addition to paper, the production of paper money also requires special dyes, chemical compounds, and sophisticated equipment. Domestic "Goznak" purchases ink for banknotes from the Swiss company SICPA (makes special protective printing inks, inks for sealing products, develops coding systems for excisable goods). According to the representatives of "Goznak", due to the growth of the Swiss franc, the costs of producing domestic banknotes are growing quite rapidly.
But Swiss paint has always been considered the highest quality. The cost of purchasing ink in the manufacture of banknotes in Europe and the world on average accounts for about 60% of the total costs of purchasing components and manufacturing banknotes.
It is interesting that there are several ways of producing paper money; not all countries print money using the same method.
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As for paper, one of the main requirements for this material is durability. Money must be durable so that it does not deteriorate too quickly. The main indicator of the durability of money is the resistance to fracture and tear. Paper bills are constantly folded and unbent, pulled by the corners and other parts. Therefore, they should not be torn. The tensile strength is determined on a dynamometer.
This characteristic is expressed in the calculated length in meters of a strip of paper, with a gap due to its own weight. For money paper, this figure is thousands of meters (more than for ordinary paper).
In order to ensure high quality and durability of the printed pattern, the money paper must have the required degree of whiteness, opacity, smoothness and lightfastness. This paper should not change its color under the influence of external factors (sunlight, for example).
In Russia, paper for money is supplied by only two enterprises. These are the St. Petersburg Paper Mill of Goznak and the Krasnokamsk Paper Mill of Goznak.
Paper protection
Paper money usually has several degrees of protection. Among others, watermarks are used, which can also serve as a kind of decoration. They create watermarks even when the paper is cast. The pattern is obtained by changing the thickness of the fiber layer along the plane of the bill. It is not easy to create a beautiful and clear watermark; it requires precise modern equipment. In some cases, the watermark is combined with the design of the bill itself.
In the production of banknotes, there is usually a watermark workshop, where a large number of highly qualified specialists work. In particular, these are engravers who transfer artists' drawings onto stamps and a metal mesh of the so-called dendirol shaft. Sometimes the patterns are transferred to the mesh of the cylinder of the cylinder mold machine.
Dendirol is an equalizer, which is installed on the mesh of the machine, and when rotating, forms an imprint of its watermark on the paper web. This method is commonly used to create paper with a common watermark. If an artistic local sign is needed, it can be obtained by hand casting or using a cylindrical boom machine. In this case, the drawings of the sign are stamped on the grid of the cylinder, and when the sheet of paper is formed, all the conditions are created that make it possible to obtain a multi-tone artistic sign. Banknotes of many countries also have special protective (often colored or metal) fibers.
The watermark should be clearly visible on all banknotes, and be absolutely identical for all banknotes of the same circulation. Faking a watermark isn't easy, especially for portraits.
Throughout the entire circulation time of paper money, their identity must be ensured. In practice, this means that if a bill, a sample of a banknote has been valid for several decades, then the money that was produced in the last years of the validity of this bill must be identical with the money that was issued at the very beginning of the period. True, during this period, some changes may be made - for example, new protections are added.
The decision to modify the appearance of the banknotes is made by special authorities, all changes are recorded. In Russia, such control is exercised by the Bank of Russia.
Development of a banknote
The creation of banknotes is a very complex and rather lengthy process, in which specialists from different fields are involved. These are financiers, artists, and specialists from Goznak (in the case of Russia) who are actively involved in the process of creating new money. After the customer (state) has outlined all the necessary criteria for making a bill, artists and engravers begin their work.
A sketch is created first - it is developed taking into account all the criteria of technological production capabilities, with the help of which future money will be printed in the future. One of the main requirements for paper banknotes is the demonstration of the ownership of the developed banknote to the manufacturer state.
This is done by introducing elements of the state's unique symbols. They can be state symbols, text, portraits of people famous in this state. Usually, large denominations of banknotes have a much more complex pattern and number of degrees of protection than small ones.
After the sketch is ready, the specialists create a printed project with special printing forms that allow you to replicate the bills in the future. Specialists of the highest class take part here, including photographers, engravers-artists, etchers, engravers-stampers, designers.
In the case of Russia, only Goznak trains these personnel. The modern process of money production includes, without fail, computer technology. As soon as the first printed draft of the new banknote is ready, it is sent to a special commission for study and approval. If the received version is approved, the production of special forms for the circulation of money begins.
Money printing
There are four main printing methods used in the process of printing paper money. These are offset, intaglio, typographic and Oryol printing. The most demanded and used are intaglio and Oryol printing methods. Interestingly, the Swiss company KBA-NotaSys SA produces about 90% of all printing and press machines for the production of banknotes in the world market. These machines, in particular, are used at Goznak.
Oryol seal
Despite the fact that this printing method was developed in 1891, it is still used today. The name of the printing process comes from the name of Goznak's specialist Ivan Orlov, who developed this method. Then, for printing bills by typographic method, it was necessary to prepare a separate printing form for each of the colors of the bill drawing.
Each mold was imprinted on a piece of special paper. The coincidence of the lines and borders of the paint using this method was not ideal, since even the use of a computer and industrial systems does not give an ideal result, let alone the technology of the late 19th century.
Ivan Orlov managed to introduce a special elastic roller with a soft structure and intermediate forms. At the same time, each form has its own drawing for each of the colors on the original. When printing, such a template transfers its own fragment to the desired place on the assembly shaft, and already from the shaft, the full palette of colors is transferred to the assembled general form, where the entire original drawing is displayed in full.
The advantage of the method is that it allows you to apply a drawing on banknotes with almost jewelry accuracy, with the coincidence of all the boundaries of the drawings and lines. In addition, the method allows, in just one pass of the sheet through the printing installation, to create the necessary fragment of the drawing, which corresponds to the original with almost 100% accuracy. It is difficult for a counterfeiter to repeat such accuracy, although, of course, there are specialists of the highest class.
Offset printing
With the help of offset printing, a so-called background grid and a number of additional elements are usually created. In small banknotes, the main pattern is sometimes applied using offset printing. Since the transfer of ink from the printing plate to the paper is carried out through an intermediate offset cylinder, the image itself on the printing plate is made straight, not mirrored.
Interestingly, with this method of printing, the regular and white-space form elements are in the same plane. But the surfaces of the elements have different physical and chemical properties. So, the printing elements are hydrophobic, they hold the ink well, repelling moisture. Whitespace, however, is hydrophilic, absorbing water but repelling paint.
Banknote inks are usually classified into three color groups. This is the blue group, red and yellow. For each group, a special form is made using a photographic method. The ink from the plates is first transferred to the rubber coating of the cylinder, and already the cylinder prints the pattern on paper.
Here's how US dollars are printed:
Metallographic printing
This is another common method of printing bills. It has been known for a long time, and for banknotes it was first used in 1887. For printing in this case, specially made forms of steel or nickel are used.
These forms are almost perfectly polished plates, on which the desired pattern is applied using a special press. The original form is made by hand using the engraving method. In Russian there is a special term for the original form. This is the "original stamp". When printing banknotes using this method, details of the engraving installations create complex patterns for banknotes. These patterns are composed of many lines. After the etching process, an element of the general image appears, which is placed on the bill.
Such elements, in combination with hand engraving and applied font, form a single image of the banknote. This image, after production, is replicated for the printing process. True, this requires high-precision equipment, as a rule, this is a high-frequency machine and an automated galvanic line.
According to experts, the main advantage of the intaglio printing method is that it can be used to reproduce a wide range of bright colors for printing. If you use different depths and widths of the pattern, you can achieve a wide variety of colorful effects, often volumetric.
When printing, ink is applied to printing plates using prepared rubber templates. She goes to engraving and whitespace. After these elements, the paint is erased, and the form is ready for drawing on paper. The drawing is applied by applying the form to the paper under high pressure.
Metallographic printing is divided into two types. This is intaglio printing, when images are transferred from a printing plate, on which the printing elements are significantly deepened in relation to the blank. And letterpress printing, when the printing elements on the forms are located above the blanks. Letterpress printing is used for drawing on large banknotes, serial numbers and a number of important elements of small and large denominations.
After the bills are printed, the uncut sheets are sent to a special workshop, where they are cut into individual bills. After that, the money is counted with the help of a machine and packed, they are sent to "free float" around the country and abroad.