A £10, £20, £50 Pocket Tissues that are on sale in eBay has been order to stop sale by Bank of England. The shop, Bright Ideas, in Melton, had been selling the novelty pocket tissues via its online eBay shop. The tissue are just smaller than the real banknotes and only printed on one side. As reported in financial-news.co.uk, a Bank of England spokesman said: “Under section 18(1) of the Forgery and Counterfeiting Act 1981 it is a criminal offence for any person, without the prior consent in writing of the Bank of England, to reproduce on any substance whatsoever, and whether or not on the correct scale, any Bank of England banknote or any part of a Bank of England banknote. The images on the tissue products in question fall within the Act, and because we have not given permission for our copyrighted images to be used in this way we have asked eBay to remove them from their site".
I think Bank of England have the right to stop the sale because they have the copyright for the banknotes even if the Novelty tissue doesn't look like real money. They don't said anything about the action that Bank of England will be taken against the shop. I think they're also many same story to Malaysia banknotes too but most of it doesn't come out to our national newspaper. The recent one is an engine oil company who produce a discount coupon that look like a RM50 banknotes. The coupon has been withdrawn by the company but many collectors that I know still like to keep the coupon.
For Malaysia currency reproduction, Bank Negara Malaysia has issued this statement in their website:
You are not allowed to reproduce the Malaysian currency. It is also illegal for you to use any photograph, drawing or design of any note, coin or any part of the note or coin, of any size, scale or colour, in any advertising or on any merchandise or products, which are manufactured, sold, circulated or distributed except with the permission of BNM. You may be fined up to RM5,000 if you were to reproduce the Malaysian currency without the permission of BNM.
