SARATOGA — Many residents of the Platte Valley — with its scenic mountain ranges and rivers and breathtaking vistas — may have thought it was only a matter of time before Hollywood arrived in Saratoga.
It has, but probably not in the way most would expect.
According to Lt. John Moore with the Saratoga Police Department, prop money has recently been found throughout Saratoga. The props are realistic enough, judging by the $20 bill Moore brought with him to the Saratoga Sun.
It could almost pass for legal tender. Almost.
“They look realistic, other than where [the words] United States of America would be, it says ‘Motion Picture Use Only.’ They feel like normal paper. They don’t feel like money paper,” said Moore. “The back is standard, other than it says ‘Copy’ in the upper left and the bottom, in small print, it says ‘Play Money Only.’”
For Moore, who has worked in law enforcement for 20 years in Carbon County and who even worked security at casinos, this is new territory.
According to him, most counterfeiters will use legal tender such as a $1 bill and wash it before reprinting it to look like a bill of a larger denomination.
Moore said while he was working the casinos, he observed people cutting the corners of a $1 bill to trick the bill validators into recognizing it as a $100 bill.
“I hadn’t heard of them getting out of the Hollywood area,” he said. “They usually control this stuff pretty well. I’m guessing someone probably got an old movie prop and there was something in them [the prop]. Since there isn’t much [of a] film industry in Wyoming, it’s very interesting that they even showed up here.”
The first hit on a search for “movie prop money” brings up the website propmoviemoney.com.
Prop Movie Money bills itself as the “Official Prop Money of the Movie Industry” with its product being used in series such as “The Boys” and “Better Call Saul” and movies such as “Deadpool 2” and “Army of the Dead.”
There are similarities between the bills found in Saratoga and the ones available on the website — where a 2000 series mix of $18,500 costs just $124.99 — but also some differences.
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The biggest difference is that the words “Motion Picture Use Only” are in different locations and the word “Copy” is not found on the bills available from Prop Movie Money.
Similar prop bills can be found on Amazon.
“It’s not illegal to possess these until you try to pass them as legal tender,” said Moore.
The first time the Saratoga Police Department became aware of the issue was nearly two weeks ago, when someone handed the $20 bill presented by Moore at the Sun to Saratoga Mayor Chuck Davis.
“This was found outside The Country Store and was given to Mayor Chuck Davis. He’s the one that brought it to me about two weeks ago. Since then, there’s been $1 bills, $5 bills and $100 bills that have shown up. They’re all different denominations that have been floating around downtown,” said Moore. “A lot of them have been discovered and turned in to the police department. We did have one $100 bill that got passed to a business here in town and they discovered it after it was used.”
Similar to cases in which counterfeit currency is passed, there’s not much the Saratoga Police Department or the business can do to recoup that money if a suspect isn’t found.
“Only if we can identify the subject who passed it [the movie money]. The thing with counterfeits, whoever has it ends up being out that money,” said Moore. “The Federal Reserve takes them back and they just go out of circulation.”
According to Moore, the Saratoga Police Department isn’t sure how many of these prop bills are still around and encourages businesses and their employees to be vigilant.
The prop money doesn’t have many of the security features found with current currency, such as color changing colors in the corners or the security strips.
Due to being printed on different paper, said Moore, it won’t pass the pen test either.
Anyone with information about who is using the movie prop money is encouraged to contact the Saratoga Police Department non-emergency line at 307-326-8316.
