Gregor Antes
Induction Year: 2023
Gregor Antes was born June 13, 1939 in Zurich where he still lives. He is known as a physicist and inventor, owning several patents. He completed a physics degree (about plasma physics) in 1965 at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich.
Thereafter Gregor worked as an assistant to Prof. Wolfgang Berg at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich (Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule, ETH). Gregor was interested in the then new technology of holograms. As a pioneer in this field, Gregor installed a research laboratory close to the ETH in the cellar of his own home and produced the first holograms in Switzerland.
From 1974 to 1993, Gregor worked at Landis & Gyr Company in Zug (Switzerland). In the early years as scientist and physicist and from 1984 as Development Manager of the new established division of Monetics. His task was to develop procedures for coin validation and for securing documents, banknotes and securities.
During this period, Gregor developed the High Security Feature Kinegram® for banknotes and governmental documents.
His main area of research was the physics of optical diffraction microstructures. This was the origin of the invention of the Kinegram® technology. The implementation of the origination as well as the process of industrial production of Kinegram® elements under Gregor’s lead was the decisive basis for the further success of the new technology.
The first use of Kinegram® was in Saudi Arabian passports in 1987 followed by the 5000 Schilling banknote of the Austrian National Bank in 1988. Since 1995, also Swiss banknotes are protected with Kinegram® as the first banknote series. In the meantime, there are banknotes, identity cards, passports, visa stickers and gold bars around the world protected with the Kinegram® security element.
The company OVD-Kinegram AG emerged from a spin-off from Landis&Gyr. The current owner is the Kurz Group in Fürth (Germany). OVD-Kinegram AG still exists as a subsidiary in Zug (Switzerland).
Based on the inventions of Gregor Antes, well-known personalities such as Wayne Tompkin (2015 Hall of Fame Member) evolve Kinegram® technology and products in the following years.
Kinegram® technology is still very important for high-security documents of state authorities worldwide. Safe and secure banknotes, passports, ID cards are hard to imagine without this technology. The Kinegram® element and modification of this technology are used in many banknote series around the world as well as in over 500 governmental documents in more than 120 countries.
w Gregor Antes’ basement laboratory changed money as we know it
