# What's money made of?

- Link: https://fundraising.co.uk/2011/10/30/what039s-money-made/
- Published: 2011-10-30T15:36:44+00:00
- Author: Howard Lake

No, not a philosophical question in these straitened times. Given that we fundraisers
spend a lot of time focusing on money, and ideally larger sums, I realised I didn’t
know what money was made of, or at least the ‘paper’ variety we like.

I now know. UK banknotes are made of a mixture of cotton fibre and linen rag; euro
notes are 100% cotton; and US notes are 75% cotton and 25% linen.

The figures are in [The Inkjet Counterfeiter](http://www.wired.co.uk/magazine/archive/2009/11/features/the-inkjet-counterfeiter)
by Adam Higginbotham, published in Wired UK in November 2009, p 133.

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