I had a great Lincoln Highway Arts Festival weekend. I bought a couple of new art pieces at the event.

Drank two excellent floats from the Floats food truck (one for breakfast, one for a Hobbit style afternoon snack) and had great meals at uptown restaurants. I had cinnamon rolls I saved for breakfast on Sunday.

Easily spent the $90 in my pocket I had allotted for the festival in the end, which again, was my goal.

When I went over to Chameleon’s to spend most of the last of my cash for the weekend Saturday evening, I was excited when I stumbled on a bill lying on the ground.

But within that first touch, it already felt slightly off. I handle a fair amount of cash, usually getting $20 back from Gary’s or Casey’s stops, so I’ve gotten used to the feel of that cloth/paper blend money has.

The bill I picked up didn’t have that feeling. It felt much more like paper.

It had $100 in all the corners, which again, had me thinking “I may have just broken even on the weekend!” I rarely have touched a $100 bill in my life, maybe that’s just a different feel to that bill.

I put it in my pocket and ate my supper, and then when I got back to the newspaper office to pick up some items before my next event, I looked at the other telltale signs I’ve been ingrained in checking for larger bills. It didn’t have the color changing ink in the lower right-hand corner that has rolled out in my lifetime as an anti-counterfeit measure. It didn’t have the USA100 strip when held to the light, nor the Franklin watermark.

And, upon flipping it over, there was a true dead giveaway — the bill had Chinese symbols in the bottom right corner’s 100.

The obvious became true. This wasn’t a real $100, nor a windfall for the recipient. This was the type of bill if you tried to spend it, you’ll have to deal with the local police and explain where you got it and hurt businesses that didn’t check for it.

I set it aside for the night and went to my local D&D meet up and enjoyed my evening, and I made plans to call this in on Monday.

Officer Gehrke kindly picked it up and added it to his evidence for an ongoing case, since it was the second spotted in the area. But as I shared on Facebook, it unsettled me when I discovered it just lying in the open like that. There may be more that got to others hands who didn’t closely evaluate it. Especially if the adage is true that there are many bills in circulation that touch 15 hands or more in the course of their lives.

If you are ever in doubt about a bill, contact your local banks or the police department. They can help you verify if it is real or not.