Marked notes, altered currency, etc.

News: Welcome to the Canadian Paper Money Forum.

Zatsta you have a good question.

I'm sure many people have gotten these 'marked' bills for ATM's. So if it were illegal, why do banks give them back out. Shouldn't they be withdrawn like counterfeit notes?

it depends if you have Mens rea or not. For example: putting a cashier stamp on a 10$ is probably not illegal. Writing on a 10$ that Mc Donald were a boring alcoolic. Yes it is illegal because YOU MUST know according to the law that writing such things on a bill is not GOOD and society would probably deny such of acts. that's what one call Ignorantia juris non excusat or Ignorance of the law affords no excuse. BoC could easily suit a group of person that modify their bills without authorization. One must understand that Paper money is document and they are in the law included as 'exchequer bill'. A exchequer bill is : a bank-note, bond, note, debenture or security that is issued or guaranteed by Her Majesty under the authority of Parliament or the legislature of a province. You are not modifying Monopoly money when you write something on it. It is like a credit cards or Interac cards. These are not your propriety. Read carefully what is small written back of your card. THIS CARD IS NOT YOUR PROPRIETY AND SHALL BE RETURN ON DEMAND.

If someone here thinks it's legal to write on paper money. Just buy a whole brick of 10$ write and sign your name and write your telephone numbers, wait one or two months until the banks receive your bills and BoC gets contact. Wait two weeks until RCMP knocked at your door and wait your process.

Try to explain to a judge you had no criminel intent to mark with a pen Legal Tender documents knowingly you were making them unfit to circulation. I am sure you are going to be found guilty.

That's the key; "unfit for circulation."  Go back to the first post in this thread, and click the link to the article I wrote that quotes the Bank of Canada's opinion on what is "unfit for circulation."  Marking notes with a pen or rubber stamp the way note trackers do does not render the notes "unfit for circulation" according to the Bank of Canada's own criteria.

If someone here thinks it's legal to write on paper money. Just buy a whole brick of 10$ write and sign your name and write your telephone numbers, wait one or two months until the banks receive your bills and BoC gets contact. Wait two weeks until RCMP knocked at your door and wait your process.

Been there, done that.  Over three bricks of notes over three years, to be precise.  No, they were not marked with my name and phone number, but any law enforcement official could easily trace my bill entries right down to my postal code and IP address, and if it were a serious enough concern, they'd have let me (or at least the site's operator) know by now.  1.2 million bank notes have been entered on Where's Willy up to this point, and the site operator has heard nary a peep from any law enforcement officials.

Anyhow, here's what Sylvie Dionne of the Bank of Canada has to say on such matters, and I'm sure that they consult their lawyers before making such a statement:

"At one time, the Bank Act contained a section that prohibited the mutilation and defacement of bank notes. Section 311 of the Bank Act was repealed in 1993. It was not added to the current version of the Bank Act nor was it added to any other legislation. It is therefore no longer an offence to deface or mutilate paper money."

Right out of the horse's mouth; and that's even assuming that marking a note with a pen or rubber stamp is "defacement or mutilation", which it isn't anyway.

Can we please stop beating this dead horse now?

 Seth I am not beating you. Sorry if I was a little rough. I was just providing general information from the original topic. I am sometimes like an old friend watching his friends behaviour.

In fact, I don't care. It is not my problem. I am not printing these bills   That is BoC's problem.

Be careful with 'civil servant' statements. They have no legal value. Everybody (in any case) should consult a lawyer or a competent person before doing that. I never trust governement employees.


The horse get up run away and win bluebonnets.

                          Friendly and no hard feelings  

eyevet: I remember I once scratched a planchet off a note ... not because I was testing it for authenticity ....
eyevet: but because I was
eyevet: sob sob
eyevet: bored!!!
BWJM: that's vandalism!
eyevet: lock me away!!!!
BWJM: I hereby execute a citizen's arrest against you for vandalism of government property and defacing bank notes.
BWJM: (And I've got the chat log to prove it!)

ah ah ah very funny guys but it will not be the case. If you want to understand 'laws' as a philosophy and an important concept of occidental way of thinking. You should point this guy who influenced our system of laws forever.

Emmanuel Kant.

The Charlton Catalogue is not the only book i own...but one of my favorite YES!  ahahha.

http://www.amazon.ca/exec/obidos/ASIN/0028475003/qid=1119934682/sr=1-2/ref=sr_1_3_2/701-5778912-1835557

and

http://www.amazon.ca/exec/obidos/ASIN/0521626951/qid=1119934682/sr=1-7/ref=sr_1_3_7/701-5778912-1835557

eyevet: I remember I once scratched a planchet off a note ... not because I was testing it for authenticity ....
eyevet: but because I was
eyevet: sob sob
eyevet: bored!!!
BWJM: that's vandalism!
eyevet: lock me away!!!!
BWJM: I hereby execute a citizen's arrest against you for vandalism of government property and defacing bank notes.
BWJM: (And I've got the chat log to prove it!)

UPDATE: eyevet was convicted of defacing government property and Alarming The Queen.  What BWJM neglected to tell you is that eyevet, in his moment of boredom, foolishly tore that planchet off from Her Majesty's portrait on a Birds $20 bill, leaving the poor lady without a pupil in her left eye.

His sentence was to be as follows:

He was to be hogtied and dragged down Yonge Street behind a streetcar.  There was to be a lottery to select 20 people who couldn't get free tickets to the Live 8 concert who would march behind eyevet (being dragged face-down) and chant "de-face the defacers! God save the Queen!"

Happily, at the 11th hour the judge overturned eyevet's conviction, sparing eyevet the necessity of changing his user name to "eyelessvet", reprising Mel Gibson's role as "The Man Without a Face", and borrowing Michael Jackson's catalogue in order to pick out a new nose.  Pick...nose...I made a funny, son - joke, that is (as Foghorn Leghorn would say)  

lol.

Thank you MonetaryMan.  However I fear that instead of eyevet, I may be sent to The Tower.  I used the term "poor lady" in reference to Her Majesty when I believe perhaps I should have said "poor Lady".  Is lack of proper capitalization a capital offence?

All kidding aside - I agree with Bitburger that the willful writing on or otherwise marking of a banknote should constitute defacement.  This would include bank employees who write numbers or rubber-stamp notes.

But it can be very tricky to define "willful marking".  To give a hypothetical example: say I'm at a nudie bar and I tip an exotic dancer - who is covered in peanut oil - by putting a $5 note into her G-string.  Now, I must certainly KNOW that by so doing, I will obviously get oil (and possibly some other substances) all over this note.  Would I be guilty of defacing currency for being the depositor?  Would she be guilty as the depositee, also knowing that oil (and possibly some other substances) will end up on the note?  Would we BOTH be guilty?  Would the fact that I was under the influence of an undisclosed number of beers be a mitigating factor?

But, again, I say this is a HYPOTHETICAL example.  #1 - I would never tip an exotic dancer with a $5 note!  #2 - An exotic dancer would never appear covered in peanut oil, lest the owner be sued by a patron with a peanut allergy...

Happily, at the 11th hour the judge overturned eyevet's conviction

What venga50 neglected to tell you, is that despite the original sentence being overturned because of its public display of brutality, eyevet is still being exiled to Siberia until he serves out his 100-year sentence... or dies trying.

In other news, we now have a moderator position which has just opened up. PM me if you're interested. Siberians need not apply.

Do you know if Siberians are collecting Paper Money?? It could be more boring if they don't  

I hear that it is forbidden for Siberians to collect anything. I think they have certain body parts exposed and left to freeze off if they are caught collecting or hoarding anything, whether it be for a hobby, or just hoarding firewood to stay warm. From what I understand, life in Siberia is pretty tough.