VERO BEACH — A man paying for gas with an old $50 bill at a Speedway station was surprised when the store manager told him it was counterfeit, and called police.
The incident happened shortly after 11 p.m. Aug. 17 in the 800 block of U.S. 1.
The manager told deputies that though the $50 bill looked real to her, she had marked it with a currency pen and it had failed the test. The man told deputies he had gotten the bill, which had been printed in 1950, as change at another gas station, and had no idea it was counterfeit.
The deputy subsequently discovered, however, that U.S. currency printed before 1960 was made with a different kind of parchment, and currency pens do not work on them. He subsequently returned the $50 bill to the man, concluding that the accusation that the customer had tried to pass a bad bill was unfounded.