Informer Sums Problem

[bainbrig]

How do you put British banknotes in a counting machine and get £999?

Well, that’s what happens on BBC’s “Informer” this week.

[Guilbert53]

Scottish pound notes?

They are no longer made but still in circulation.

[Hopkirk]

Perhaps it can't count to four figures, so £1000 is rounded down.

[gingejbee]

^^^as Hopkirk, the LED/LCD display could have just three parts, so can't display 1000. (I have an electric razor that's fully charged at 99%...it has only the two digital segments).

[Old_Geezer]

You simply put in 3, £333 notes, or 27, £37 notes.

[bainbrig]

Well no, currency counting machines (as used in banks etc) count five grand plus at a time.

[bainbrig]

And I’ll pay you back in nine-bob notes Geezer.

[IJKLM]

Surely Hopkirk has got it.

My first job was with De La Rue Systems in Portsmouth. We made and designed equipment for counting, dispensing and sorting banknotes.

There are a lot of different models with different capacities.

A small one would not have capacity for over £1000, so it would show 999 to indicate it could not handle the total.

The way to do it would be to split the stack of notes into two piles and count each separately.

[bainbrig]

Yes, IJK, I get that, but..

The point in the drama was that exchange of amounts below £1000 were subject to more stringent regulations, so the bad guys were sending £999 to avoid investigation.

The ‘counter’ put the notes in the machine, and said “You’re lucky, it’s £999.” Which, as he was counting twenties, struck me as a slight error...

[IJKLM]

Hi Bainbrig
Fair comment.

I didn't see the programme.

But, as you asked, how on earth can the machine count £20 notes and end up with an amount that is not divisible by 20.

It seems to me that the '999' display indicates that the machine is reporting an error

The only notes we have are in denominations od 5, 10, 20 and upwards, so the amount of cash in the pile of notes must have been divisible by 5. (Or were there some coins as well?)

Or maybe there were some counterfeit notes in there.

Or maybe there was, in fact, more than £1000.

I can't tell you. What I do know is that in the good old days (I left De La Rue in the 1980s), we would have to tell the operator there was an error.

We only had 7-segment LEDs in those days, so we'd tend to use the message 'Err', for system errors and '999' for 'too much cash' errors.

Interesting one....

[donny48]

The shopkeeper tips some coins into his hand after the machine counts the notes.

[bainbrig]

Blimey. Donny, I shall watch it again!

[bainbrig]

45 mins later. I watched it again.

And no he doesn’t give him coins! Talk about false-memory syndrome.

He says “Well, look at that, nine hundred and ninety-nine pounds, “ and writes a receipt. I suppose the wad could have been all twenties, and there COULD have been a £10, a £5 and some pound coins in the envelope which we didn’t see, but come on! These are top Albanian drug dealers, not market traders.

[bainbrig]

Well, watched it again a few times, and maybe, just maybe - the counter looks in the envelope, and he does seem to empty something out, to add to the £980 he's put through the note-machine...

So apologies Donny. Poor production, though.

BillB