I was looking through a run of new $5 notes from a bundle (AAK 68568xx). One particular note caught my attention... AAK 6856870 with a thin security thread. The width of the thread in the four "windows" on the back is about 1.2 mm. Normal notes have threads that are over 2.0 mm wide. In addition, the lettering on the thin thread is quite distorted versus the normal block lettering which is about as wide as it is tall on regular threads. This tells me the thin thread was stretched even before it was embedded into the paper. The shoulder notes (AAK 6856869 and AAK 6856871) are normal, so the error appears to have been contained to one sheet.
The scans below don't represent the colour of the threads well at all. A normal thread is metallic gold-green and very reflective. The error note's thread is a very dull green and hardly glossy at all.
What this error tells us is that the "metallic" security thread is probably not metal at all, but probably plastic.
Pictures below. Click on an image to view a larger version.
Would this be considered a major error or a minor error? And has anyone seen anything like this before?
{http://img16.imageshack.us/img16/6549/aakerror1.jpg:http://img16.imageshack.us/img16/6549/aakerror1.th.jpg}
The error note close-up:
{http://img825.imageshack.us/img825/2607/aakerror2.jpg:http://img825.imageshack.us/img825/2607/aakerror2.th.jpg}
A regular note close-up:
{http://img10.imageshack.us/img10/2185/aakerror3.jpg:http://img10.imageshack.us/img10/2185/aakerror3.th.jpg}