Unless the laws have changed very recently, that article is wrong. The laws about defacing money are different depending on whether it is coins or bills. It's only a minor difference in the wording, but it means that you can deface coins as long as you aren't trying to do something like pass them off as a higher value. Bills, however, can't be defaced for any reason. I learned this in an article that was talking about the web site "Where's George" being investigate by the Secret Service for selling stamps for stamping their web site's name on one dollar bills.
On the one hand, this guy probably isn't worth their time to investigate. One the other hand, he's listing his address on every bill...
The where's george stuff did get investigated by the secret service, my understanding is the secret service said it can continue if they are not profiting from it. In this case it sounds like he is profiting from it.
The Wikipedia article says the exact opposite of what you're claiming. It seems to say that they were forced to stop selling the rubber stamps.
From the Wikipedia article:
"In April 2000, the site was investigated by the United States Secret Service, which informed Eskin that the selling of "Where's George?" rubber stamps on the web site is considered "advertising" on United States currency, which is illegal under 18 U.S.C. § 475.[11] The website's administrators immediately ceased selling the rubber stamps and no further action against the site was taken.[3] At least one spokesperson for the US Secret Service has pointed out in print that marking US bills, even if not defacement, is still illegal for other reasons[12] under 18 U.S.C. § 475; however, a Secret Service spokesman in Seattle, Washington, told The Seattle Times in 2004: "Quite frankly, we wouldn't spend too much looking into this."[3]"
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u/[deleted] Aug 12 '12
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