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New US $20 bills Released, Colors & Layout Change
JayBonci writes "CNN is running a story with the newest advances in the original copy-protection arms race, a new US $20 dollar bill. From the article, specifically color and different number arrangements as an improvement over 1996's "Big Face" dollar bills." Little off the norm for Slashdot, but it's interesting since computers have vastly simplified forgery.
Holy crap, redesigning bills every 7-10 years? What the hell are they thinking?
When the current $20 bills came out, I heard of people having trouble using them, because apparently a few people somehow didn't hear that new bills were being released so obviously thought they were counterfeit. The current bills are pretty obvious, though, now that everybody knows about them. Now they're saying there will be subtle changes every few years, so in another decade there will be like 4 different versions of the $20 bill, ALL LEGAL. If you saw a fifth version, which was counterfeit, would it be obvious to you?
Yeah, they're including new security features. That's cool and all, but how often do people really check them? Sure, on a $100, people check. On $20 they usually don't. They still go by appearance and texture, just like they always have.
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$x=~y+ -xz+\0-Tx+;print$_^chop$me for split'',$x;
It's about time the U.S. has updated their bills, but I don't think that this is enough. Take a look at British Money to see how difficult you can make it for a counterfitter. Big watermarks, multiple color dyes that penetrate the fibres of the paper. The old U.S. bills you could bleach a $1 bill clean and print a $20 dollar bill on it, and nobody would be the wiser.
Ironic that the most precious thing a nation could have would also be the cheapest.
You think that I'm crazy, you should see this guy!
I've worked in the financial world for a bit, and I'm always surprised by how bad most counterfit bills look.
95% of the time, counterfeit bills are accepted by people who don't seem to notice that while the bill corners say $20, George Washington is in the center. Or that they're printed on normal grade paper.
I'm sure the government is making the change to the $20 for "big time" counterfeiters, but it seems like most of the time it can be prevented on the retail level by people just using their heads.
52 Weeks, 52 Religions with John Hummel
they haven't changed the size?! Why is it that no blind people have sued over this?
In Japan for years now, not only are the coins and dollar bills used in different colors (for easy glances to see how much money someone has), but they are of different sizes and shapes that make the coins recognizable by the blind. The 10,000 Yen bill is the longest, while the 1,000 is the shortest. Even the 5 Yen coin has a hole in it to separate it from the other coins (yes, this also goes back thousands of years to the Chinese "cash" coins).
Seeing as how all American bills are of the same size, I imagine that it must be slightly frustrating for a blind person to trust someone they don't know to be completely honest about money and take $5 instead of $50. Unfortunately, I can't see the Treasury Department putting some sort of Braille marker or other deliniating factor into future money production.
--Chag
This will be a boon for counter fitters.
"Don't be an ass, it's not counterfeit, it's the new twenty that just came out this fall."
All a counter fitter needs to do is come up with a bill chock full of security features and start spending it like there's no tomorrow. As people get used to the new bill every few years, it will become commonplace.
Remember the story of the person who passed a $3.00 bill with Bill Clinton's face on it? All they could charge him with was failure to pay, since he hadn't really counter fitted any money.
"Live Free or Die." Don't like it? Then keep out of the USA
No.. but they are edging more towards looking like canadian bills (or even euros). Seriously though, I've always found that one the problems with American money is that it is too hard to tell the denominations of the bills apart at a glance. If they are going to start using different colors on different bills, good on them. Or they could go even one step further like the Euro and have different denomiations be slightly different sizes. I know this sounds wacky, but imagine trying to use American cash if you are blind.
Also... the article mentions 2-dollar bills. Since when have the States had Twos? We (Canada) got rid of ours almost a decade ago and the states is just starting to make them now? talk about behind the times. Or is that a joke?
lysergically yours
(soapbox)
What I wanna know is, when are they going to phase out the dollar bill? The Sacagawea dollar coin went the way of the Susan B because they kept printing singles. Coins have a pocket life of 30 years, compared to 3 for bills. If we're gonna spend the time and money in a coin let's actually make it work.
(/soapbox)
Danke tres mucho, tovarishch.
One of the things that surprised me with the latest version of our Canadian bills was that braille is used! (Bank of Canada - currency - accessibility features)
...
I do wonder how well the braille stands up to the wear-and-tear such bills would go through during the normal lifetime of paper currency
YS.
"Arrr! The laws of science be a harsh mistress." -- Bender
True story: last week I was shopping with a friend and the cashier somehow rang up the purchase at about $30 less than it should have been. Said friend pointed this out to the cashier, who then rang up the purchase at the correct price.
So retail folks often make mistakes. Sometimes in your favor, sometimes in favor of the store. Which is more impressive: remaining silent and taking advantage of it, or saying something?
Especially considering that the more you think about it, the more you realize society runs on trust and relies on people to do the right thing more often than not...
Tweet, tweet.
My thought is this, and I'm surprised it hasn't floated its way to the top of the modded posts already:
Of what use is a new anti-counterfit bill if they don't recall the old, easily counterfitted ones? Counterfitters won't even try to adjust to the new bills if the old ones are still in circulation and legal tender - there's just no reason to.
That green slime had it coming.
Why paper? Polymer notes last longer, are much harder to damage, and are much more difficult to counterfeit. Also, adding extra anti-counterfeiting measures such as transparent windows, micro-print, and watermarks is simple.
Why so much green? All the US notes are green, which makes distinguishing between denominations take longer than it should. If the notes were coloured, only a quick glance would be required to check denomination, especially for people with vision impairment.
To speak from my own experience in Australia, it's been all polymer notes since 1990. Each note is a different colour and length, doesn't rip, and is terribly difficult to counterfeit.
I'm just surprised this new $US20 isn't polymer. The technology works - why not use it?
What a dull design. I don't understand why America never tries something a little more radical with their money. Australian money has a much better design overall. Their bills appear to be made of a plastic or paper/plastic hybrid. They also have a clear portion which would be much harder to counterfeit. But I think the best feature of Australian bills is that the actual physical width of the bill increases with the value of the denomination by about 5 mm per bill. That makes it so much easier to tell ata glance what value your bill has without needing to actually read the numbers. I, for one, would love to see the old fashioned greenback go the way of the T-rex.
Un-news
Alright, this is just kind of another wrinkle in the story, not really an "answer" to your question. I figure you'll want references, so here are the 2 pages I used as a basis for this post:
c y/prod uction.html
US Treasury Currency FAQ:
http://www.ustreas.gov/education/faq/curren
Bureau of Engraving and Printing FAQ:
http://www.moneyfactory.com/section.cfm/19
Basically, 2 important points from there:
1) No, there will not be a "recall" like the EU countries did when switching to the euro, and
2) "about 95%" of money printed by the US replaces worn-out bills (which are taken out of circulation and destroyed).
The point about people stockpiling bills in foreign countries is a good one; some huge portion (I want to say 2/3?) of US bills, particularly hundreds, are circulating outside of the US. Frankly, we LOVE this phenomenon, because for each amount that's printed, the government takes out an interest-bearing security which is cashed in as the note is destroyed. Of course, it's not "the same" security that's cashed in when a bill is destroyed, but a corresponding number are redeemed as bills are taken out of circulation (which probably has a lot more to do with removing currency from circulation than "the bills wore out"). So basically, the widespread use of US currency outside the US amounts to a free loan to us by everyone else in the world.
So of course we're interested in maintaining this state of affairs. But this isn't the cause for *not* collecting old bills. It is the cause for *designing new ones*. If our bills were easy to forge, do you think they would remain the preferred currency of the world, and yes, the underworld as well? No! Drug dealers don't want to have their money devalued any more than anyone else. And it's partly (perhapts primarily) their demand that keeps the amount of US currency so high. Drug dealers probably prefer the new bills when they can be had -- they don't forge money from whole cloth, they launder real money that people have given them illegally.
So basically, the old money does come out of ciculation, just not all at once. I for one have noticed it getting rarer; this past weekend at the casino was the first time I'd seen old 20's and 100's in a long time (in the sheer volume of currency I saw, it was inevitable to spot a few). The money with increased security features is in demand because it's in almost everyone's best interest to have it that way, from US citizens to foreign drug dealers.