smh wrote:
But it's still pretty easy to generate your own serial numbers. Do you have other checks to check if a bill is real? eg, with the short codes
Yes you are correct, I have started mining the data from the database, using people I know (and therefore trust) but there seems to be no clear relationship between the short code, the value and the serial number
The serial number check was already used in the old 10 Gulden banknote in the Netherlands. I mean the banknote with Frans Hals on it. It was in use since 1971. If you added all the numbers of the serialnr together you got a two digit numer. For instance: 45. If you added those together the outcome was always '9'. This info I got from a Eurobilltracker-look-a-like in the Netherlands that was only used for 10 Gulden bills:
Unfortunately this site was very badly maintained so people could enter fake notes and such. The site still seems to exist like the Gulden is still there.
When getting new 10 Gulden bills (the "IJsvogel", used since 1997) from a money machine the numbers would always exactly follow each other. When a friend of me noted that when getting brand new Eurobills from the money machine there were always 9 numbers in between he got suspicious and tried the old 10-Gulden trick. It worked! Every Euro-country seems to have it's own security-check-number.
First you list the countries in alphabetical order of two-letter code.
(Greece will be an exception here, for good reason)
Z = [be] = Belgium = 0
Y = [el] = Greece = 1
X = [de] = Germany = 2
W = [dn] = Denmark = 3 -- not currently being used
V = [es] = Spain = 4
U = [fr] = France = 5
T = [ie] = Ireland = 6
S = [it] = Italy = 7
R = [lu] = Luxemburg = 8 -- not currently being used
Q -- not used because it is too similar to 0 = 0
P = [nl] = Netherlands = 1
O -- not used because it is too similar to 0 = 2
N = [os] = Austria = 3
M = [pt] = Portugal = 4
L = [sf] = Finland = 5
K = [sw] = Sweden = 6 -- not currently being used
J = [uk] = UK = 7 -- not currently being used
I -- not used because it is too similar to 1 = 8
<thus the first ascention country to join the Euro should get: H = 0>
Greece had to get Y since it needed a letter which was the same in both alphabets.
9 = 0 casting out nines. You can replace every reference to 0 as a reference to 9.
As to Luxemburg: they are in the Eurozone, but they don't make their own bills. The ECB said that the R code is not being used - but it doesn't make a lot of sense to me.
Esperantisto, where did you get those two letter codes? The only official codes i know of is:
ISO 3letter (eg at sporting events: GER = germany)
ISO 2letter (eg URL domains: www.boc.de, currencies: DEM )
UN 1-3 letter (used on car ovals and plates: D = germany)
Country - ISO2L - UN:
Austria - AT - A
Belgium - BE - B
Germany - DE - D
Denmark - DK - DK
Spain - ES - E
Finland - FI - FIN
France - FR - F
United Kingdom - GB (UK) - GB
Greece - GR - GR
Ireland - IE - IRL
Italy - IT - I
Luxembourg - LU - L
Netherlands - NL - NL
Portugal - PT - P
Sweden - SE - S
[/list]
Here's what I know about letter assignment: the order is not given by 2 letters code, but by the coutry name in their language. The list is:
United Kingdom
Sverige (Sweden)
Suomi (Finland)
Portugal
Oesterreich (Austria)
Nederland
Luxembourg
Italia
Ireland
France
Espana
Ellàda (Greece)
Deutschland
Danmark
Belgie/Belgique
Sorry, I'm too lazy to get all the special characters
As already said, Danmark and Greece were swapped
I wonder why the ECB uses the number check between each note? It is easy to create a serial number with a correct check tally!
Also, I notice that while the Irish notes go up in increments of 9, no serial number ends in zero - if I get bills from an ATM and one ended in ...11, the next would be ...29, not 20! Is this common throughout the eurozone?
byrnefm wrote:Also, I notice that while the Irish notes go up in increments of 9, no serial number ends in zero - if I get bills from an ATM and one ended in ...11, the next would be ...29, not 20! Is this common throughout the eurozone?