Hologram Industry News

The history of holograms on banknotes can be traced to the 1980s when the Australian commemorative $100 and the Austrian 500 Schilling were issued in 1988. The latter – a paper note on which a hologram was applied as a hot-stamped foil patch - is credited with paving the
way for the subsequent development of the market.

These early successes were followed by Kuwait and Poland adopting holograms for their paper currencies before Bulgaria introduced the first holographic stripe on a banknote on its the 2000 leva note. Over the last 15 years growth has been steady with patches initially the preferred method of applying holograms to notes before being overtaken by stripes. Holograms can also be incorporated into the windowed security threads that are increasingly making an appearance in banknotes.

For complete article download: global-currencies-continue-to-bank-on-hologram.pdf

Shillong: Comissioner of Excise has fixed May 15, 2010 for the implementation of holograms in all the liquor bottles being sold in the state, to check the leakage of revenue.

The step was come after Meghalaya Deputy Chief Minister, incharge of Finance, Dr Mukul Sangma, had recently proposed to introduce holograms in the state, to check leakage of revenue during his presentation of Budget for 2010-11. This step will help state government in generating additional revenue of Rs 10 crore annually.

Globally, holograms are used as they are highly versatile. They can be applied cost-effective to a wide variety of substrates and products as part of conventional printing, packaging and labelling processes. And while they are essentially overt features that can be recognised and verified by the common man (public). As of 2007, more than 27 countries (46% of total using tax stamp) are using on their liquor stamps.

Source: www.taxstampforum.com / Meghalaya Times

In the current global markets, to fight the problem of tobacco counterfeiting, holographic tax stamps are widely used for authentication worldwide. Holograms are security devices that have effects which cannot be exactly replicated by normal reprographics methods. Expensive and high-tech hologram printers print holograms directly on cigarette packets. As per Reconnaissance international, UK globally, an estimated 124 billion tax stamps are issued annually for cigarettes out of which 60 billion features a hologram. As of 2007, 68 countries were using tax stamps for cigarettes, of these 20 used hologram on their cigarette stamps which is 29% of the total. The strategy is to increase the sale of products by using innovative packaging, giving unique look, increasing brand identity as well as to secure the product from counterfeiters.
For complete article, download high-tech-hologram.pdf

Specialist publishers, conference organisers and consultants Reconnaissance International has purchased the annual Pan-European High Security Printing Conference and the Asian High Security Printing Conference from the Cross Group and BSC International.

Established in 2001 these conferences have become recognised as leading events within the government and related high-security documents arena. The conferences cover issues relating to banknote production and cash handling, passports, tax stamps, e-passports, e-ID card production and other areas involved in high security printing.

The next four conferences will be transitional, organised jointly by Cross Group, BSC International and Reconnaissance International, as the events are integrated into Reconnaissance’s existing conference business. This includes the Tax Stamp Forum, Optical Document Security, the Global Forum on Pharmaceutical Anti-Counterfeiting and the Holo-pack•Holo-print® conference among others.

Ian Lancaster, managing director of Reconnaissance International, said the acquisitions will be an excellent fit with the company’s existing portfolio.

“These conferences complement our existing operations and fit extremely well between our core currency and authentication activities,” he said.

The 6th Pan-European High Security Printing Conference will be held from 1 - 2 April 2009 in Warsaw, Poland, while the 8th Asian High Security Printing Conference will follow on 13 -15 October 2009, with support from the China Banknote Printing and Minting Corporation.

The 7th Pan-European High Security Printing Conference will be held in Berlin, German in spring 2010.
For more about this visit: http://www.reconnaissance-intl.com/