Fake or not? Your mouse can tell.

[chrisild]

A team of researchers at the University of Lleida, Catalonia, has developed a detection system that allows a computer mouse to tell whether a €2 coin is a counterfeit or not. The software works with LED and infrared mouse sensors.

To determine the authenticity, the coin needs to be put into a rotating holder (see the attached photo from elmundo.es). The sensor will then "scan" the piece and check it against a database of €2 coins. According to the team, the software would also work with webcams, but mouse sensors are less expensive.

http://www.elmundo.es/elmundo/2009/11/16/ciencia/1258378134.html
(article in Spanish)

Whether the system will be useful in everyday life, I don't know. After all, coins are supposed to "work" very fast. Also, I wonder whether the software would have to be updated regularly in order to cover all commemorative €2 coins - or whether those are hardly counterfeited anyway ...

Christian

[chrisild]

Some more information ...

* Media release (Catalan) of the university:
http://www.udl.cat/serveis/oficina/Noticies/2009/novembre17.html

* Abstract and Paper (English) "Using the Optical Mouse Sensor as a Two-Euro Counterfeit Coin Detector":
http://www.mdpi.com/1424-8220/9/9/7083/pdf

Christian

[Figleaf]

Unlike banknotes, coins have no security features to speak of. Therefore, such a device can only compare an "official" picture with the coin. Coins wear and get scratched and they change colour, so if the threshold is set too high, scratched, worn or discoloured coins will be rejected and if it is set too low, counterfeits will be accepted. This device will probably just recognize euro coins and reject lookalike bimetallic coins. I addition, as you said, there's the problem of new issues, even without the commemoratives. Think of the annual changes in the Belgian series alone...

Peter

[Sir Sisu]

Is not the engraving on the edges of 2€ coins, for example, a sort of security measure? Albeit not a very easily recognizable one by the average person.

Rather than creating such 'counterfeit readers' I wonder why some of those holographic elements that are used by other countries have not been incorporated into the euro.

[MS]

Are there many counterfeit Euro coins in circulation? How bad is the problem?

I am interested in collecting Euros but I don't know much about them. I suppose the relative strength of the Euro would make it attractive to counterfeit as is the case with the Pound coins.

MS

[Figleaf]

Euro coins are forged, but not as much as pound coins. Maybe the bimetallic coins are just more difficult to imitate or produce. Relative strength is probably not as interesting to unofficial coiners as absolute value. The higher the value of the coin, the higher the profit per coin.

Yes, the edge inscription may be the most difficult to imitate feature. It is no longer a safeguard (tutamen, as some UK coins put it), but just a decoration (decus). It may be hard to get right, but it also least looked at. I even suspect that this scanner ignores it.

Peter