First up, just touch it. A real fiver is made of thin, flexible polymer—it feels slightly plastic and waxy, not like paper at all. If the note feels flimsy, too stiff, or suspiciously like regular paper, that’s a red flag.
Try crumpling it gently in your palm. A genuine note will spring back to shape with barely a wrinkle. A fake often stays creased, like a bad memory. Weird, right? It’s science, but way more useful.
Look for the window
Now for the fun part: hold the note up to the light. See that big clear window with the Queen’s portrait? That’s not just for decoration. That window should be perfectly transparent—no fogging, no smudges. On a fake, the window might look cloudy or have a rough edge.
Inside that window, you’ll spot the Queen’s head as a hologram. Tilt the note side to side. See how the image changes from a “£5” symbol to the Queen’s face? That’s a slick move that fakes just can’t pull off cleanly. If the hologram is blurry or doesn’t shift, it’s a no-go.
How To Spot A Fake Polymer Note at Carlos Pratt blog
