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Almost everything on a circulating coin or note is there because a mint, a treasury or a central bank put it there and published the fact, which makes this one of the best-evidenced areas in the catalogue. A coin is read in five parts — obverse, reverse, legend, exergue, edge — and the smallest lettering is usually the part that dates and places it. A note's published security features are described here as far as the issuer describes them and no further, because what a central bank tells the public to check is public-interest information and what it declines to publish is not. One correction runs through the coin records: a mint mark identifies and dates a coin, and does not value one. Nearly all the writing on the subject is about price, and price is not a property of a symbol.
Obverse, reverse, legend, exergue, edge — the parts, and which carries what.
A small letter or emblem saying which mint struck the coin.
A small extra emblem marking an occasion or a production detail.
Grooves or lettering round the rim, invented against coin clipping.
D G REG F D — the Latin round the rim, expanded.
Seven sides, a bimetallic ring, a scalloped edge — denomination by feel.
What a coin's surface says about where it has been.
An image in the paper itself, visible only against the light.
A metallic strip embedded in the note, surfacing in windows.
The unique code identifying one individual note.
Raised dots or bars letting a note be identified by touch.
A scatter of small rings on a banknote that scanners refuse to copy.
Where the sign goes, and why the answer is different in every country.
999.9, or 24K — how pure the metal is, stamped on the bar.