Sharpie Counterfeit Markers

For some of us, “office supplies” can be more like “store supplies” or “business supplies” and these Sharpie Counterfeit Detector Pens certainly fit into the business supply category a little bit better.  I’ve used similar pens in the past when I worked in retail, and to the best of my memory all of the ones that I used were no-name brands that kind of made you question the quality.  Luckily Sharpie has decided to enter the market for these unique and invaluable tools, and CEO of BuyOnlineNow.com, Bob Herman was kind enough to send one of these over for me to try out.

The concept of a counterfeit detector pen is pretty simple, you write on a bill with the pen,and if it retains the pale yellow color of the ink, your bill is real.  If the ink turns a dark brown or black, you better make sure you don’t take that bill.  Below are a few samples of the positive and negative results.  I’m sure that to the naked eye, it is probably incredibly difficult to tell the real from the fake bill, so I’ll let you in on the secret.  If you look at the top bill, you will see a very faint yellow scribble above the “20″ in the lower right hand corner.  On the bottom bill in the lower right hand corner, you will see a black scribble.  Both of these scribbles came from the same Sharpie Counterfeit Marker, but the difference is that the marker recognizes the paper used by the Federal Reserve to print money on, and it does not react.

The Fake Bill (bottom if you can't tell) Shows the Tell-Tale Black Mark Left by the Sharpie Counterfeit Marker.

One thing that I was always frustrated with when I was using these back in my retail days was that you had to constantly remove the cap, and being someone who liked to keep my line moving I hated the extra and somewhat cumbersome step of uncapping and recapping a pen.  I’d love to see someone make a retractable counterfeit detector pen because that would certainly improve the efficiency of many cashiers based on my experience.  Overall though, these pens are comfortable to use,  the grip is nicely done and although the cap does post nicely, I don’t think that most people using these would bother posting the cap.  Hopefully if you are working in the cash wrap area of a retail store or bank, the bills have already been checked, so most people probably wouldn’t be using these pens for extended periods of time that would require a cap posting.

As I said, personally I am happy to finally see a Sharpie Counterfeit Detector Pens because it really brings one of the most reliable and trusted brands into the market for a pen that could be a critical insurance against fraud to your business.

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