A gripper on endless chains is actuated by a sensor to latch over the leag edge of a document, such as a paper bill, upon insertion thereof into a machine, and simultaneously a magnetic scanning head is lowered against the bill to perform a magnetic ink test. Thereafter, the chains are operated so as to transport the document along a chain run to an inspection station where it pauses for photoelectric inspection at a number of key spots, whereby validity and denomination are determined. Thereafter, the chains advance the bill to the end of the chain run, whereupon the gripper is unlatched and a flipper deflects the document either to a reject slot or an escrow receptacle.
An inspecting system for security documents is disclosed, wherein a rotating cylinder provided with transparent sectors is apt to transport the document past an image acquiring device, and in which a transparency inspecting device is placed partially inside and partially outside the cylinder so that the electromagnetic inspecting beam is intercepted by the documents held lying onto the transparent sectors. Further, the inspecting system is provided with shading elements, in the optical pattern, apt to define a cone of shade only in correspondence of sensitive elements of a camera.
