A currency-counting machine is a machine that counts money—either stacks of

banknote A banknote or bank notealso called a bill (North American English) or simply a noteis a type of paper money that is made and distributed ("issued") by a bank of issue, payable to the bearer on demand. Banknotes were originally issued by commerc ...

s or loose collections of

coin A coin is a small object, usually round and flat, used primarily as a medium of exchange or legal tender. They are standardized in weight, and produced in large quantities at a mint in order to facilitate trade. They are most often issued by ...

s. Counters may be purely mechanical or use electronic components. The machines typically provide a total count of all money, or count off specific batch sizes for wrapping and storage. Currency counters are commonly used in vending machines to determine what amount of money has been deposited by customers. In some modern

automated teller machine An automated teller machine (ATM) is an electronic telecommunications device that enables customers of financial institutions to perform financial transactions, such as cash withdrawals, deposits, funds transfers, balance inquiries or account ...

s, currency counters allow for

cash In economics, cash is money in the physical form of currency, such as banknotes and coins. In book-keeping and financial accounting, cash is current assets comprising currency or currency equivalents that can be accessed immediately or near-i ...

deposits without

envelope An envelope is a common packaging item, usually made of thin, flat material. It is designed to contain a flat object, such as a letter (message), letter or Greeting card, card. Traditional envelopes are made from sheets of paper cut to one o ...

s, since they can identify which notes have been inserted instead of just how many. The

user Ancient Egyptian roles * User (ancient Egyptian official), an ancient Egyptian nomarch (governor) of the Eighth Dynasty * Useramen, an ancient Egyptian vizier also called "User" Other uses * User (computing), a person (or software) using an ...

is given the chance to review the automatic counter's idea of the quantity and kinds of the inserted banknotes before the deposit is complete. The above physical

machines A machine is a physical system that uses power to apply forces and control movement to perform an action. The term is commonly applied to artificial devices, such as those employing engines or motors, but also to natural biological macromolec ...

count cash easily. However, today, various money counter online tools are available on the

Internet The Internet (or internet) is the Global network, global system of interconnected computer networks that uses the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to communicate between networks and devices. It is a internetworking, network of networks ...

that make the task error-free and easy. One only needs to put the value of notes and coins on those tools to get an accurate value.

Types

Banknote-only

Basic banknote counters provide a total count of the notes in the supply hopper. More advanced counters can identify different denominations to provide a total currency value of mixed banknotes, including those that are upside down. Some banknote counters can also detect counterfeit notes either magnetically and/or using

blacklight A blacklight, also called a UV-A light, Wood's lamp, or ultraviolet light, is a lamp that emits long-wave ( UV-A) ultraviolet light and very little visible light. One type of lamp has a violet filter material, either on the bulb or in a se ...

. Blacklight (UV) based detectors exploit the fact that in many countries, real banknotes have fluorescent symbols on them that only show under a black light. Also, the paper used for printing money does not contain any of the brightening agents which make commercially available papers fluoresce under black light. Both features make counterfeit notes both easier to detect and more difficult to successfully produce. There are two main types of loader design: back and top. * Back. Notes are fed into the hopper from the back of the machine. This feeding design makes the machine more cost-efficient, but the notes need to be stacked neatly to avoid jamming, and the maximum size of the stack is reduced. * Top. notes are fed into the hopper from the front of the machine. This feeding design makes the machine more costly, but feeding notes is easier, and it is possible to feed notes continuously. A stack of notes are placed in a compartment of the machine, and then one note at a time is mechanically pulled through the machine. By counting the number of times a beam of light is interrupted, the machine can count the notes. By comparing an image of each denomination to

pattern recognition Pattern recognition is the task of assigning a class to an observation based on patterns extracted from data. While similar, pattern recognition (PR) is not to be confused with pattern machines (PM) which may possess PR capabilities but their p ...

criteria, the machine can ascertain denominations and identify counterfeits.

Banknote and coin

Counting scales that are able to count batches of notes or of coins without having to process them individually, were introduced in Great Britain in 1980 and are now widely used by banks, retailers and food service outlets in many parts of the world. They are faster and more versatile than the traditional notes-only & coins-only equipment, but cannot detect counterfeits.

Coin

The phrase ''coin counter'' may refer to a device which both sorts and counts coins at the same time, or only counts presorted coins that are all the same size. A typical counter of presorted coins uses a bowl with flat spinning disc at the bottom to distribute coins around the bowl perimeter. An opening in the edge of the bowl is only wide enough to accept one coin at a time. Coins either pass through a light-beam counter, or are pushed through a spring-loaded cam that only accepts one coin at a time. Good standard for coin counter's counting speed is 300 coins per minute.

Sorter

A coin sorter is a device which sorts a random collection of coins into separate bins or tubes for various denominations. Coin sorters are typically specific to the currency of certain countries due to different currencies often issuing similarly sized coins of different value. While some sorters make no attempt at counting, most sorters are armed with a screen displaying the number or the value of the coins that passed through the machine.

First examples

Kokuei manufactured a coin counter in Japan in 1952.

De La Rue De La Rue plc (, ) is a British company headquartered in Basingstoke, England, that produces secure digital and physical protections for goods, trade, and identities in 140 countries. It sells to governments, central banks, and businesses. Its ...

marketed their first bank note counting machine in 1957. These companies continued to manufacture a wide variety of cash handling equipment. In 1971, Kokuei changed its name to Glory. In 2008, De La Rue Cash Systems was renamed Talaris. In 2013, Glory acquired Talaris.

References

"Counts and Wraps Coins Quickly and Easily"
''

Popular Science Popular science (also called pop-science or popsci) is an interpretation of science intended for a general audience. While science journalism focuses on recent scientific developments, popular science is more broad ranging. It may be written ...

'', February 1919, page 68 (via

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)

Patents

* {{Patent, US, 7672499, ''Method and Apparatus for Currency Discrimination and Counting'' by Raterman, et al., Cummins-Allison Corp. (2 March 2010) Banking technology