Bureau of Engraving and Printing Issues New US$20

jea6 writes "Hot off the Western Currency Facility presses in Fort Worth! The Bureau of Engraving and Printing is issuing the new US$20 note to banks today. The newly redesigned Series 2004 $20 notes have background colors (so long, greenbacks) and improved security features. Ask your bank to send a few your way. Unlike the U.S Mint's "Golden Dollar", these notes will be issued to replace the Series 2001 note. Look for a redesigned Grant in 2004 and a new Benjamin in 2005. The US Government is spending $53,000,000 over the next 5 years to make sure everybody knows that this is a real note, so go get acquainted with one."

Comments

I Always Liked the Green Bills

[Jameth]

I know it's kind-of silly, but I always really liked having all green bills. It makes my money-wads look a lot less messy. I've had money-wads of multi-colored bills, and it just gets ugly. The mass of colors ends up so busy that its irritating to look at.

Of course, I'm a little obsessive compulsive and my favorite color is green, but it's alright to have a biased position.

Re:I Always Liked the Green Bills

[quigonn]

Actually, the colors make sense. When a color marks a certain value, it's easier to distinguish them. With bills all in this greenish color you have to look closely to know which value it has. In fact, this led to a number of tricks to make people believe that they get a US-$ 20 bill, but instead they only got a US-$ 5 bill. So colors do have their advantages. And the Euro proves that colorful bills can look elegant, too.

Re:I Always Liked the Green Bills

[Divide By Zero]

No, but changing the paper WOULD. And it seems to me that making braille indents into linen rag paper would be difficult to say the least.

IANA human factors/ergonomics expert, but I think the BoE&P has enough on the payroll that we can safely say that the US is willing to change some ink, design and color to a certain extent, and is unwilling to change the paper stock and the size of currency notes. They can't use things like holograms (and I'd guess plastic derivatives) due to how they stress-test new notes - holograms are notoriously bad in the crumple test. Thus, the green/black metallic color changing ink on the front.

What gets me is that somehow currency got grandfathered out of the Americans with Disabilities Act. The ADA, for those unfamiliar, basically says that facilities paid for by taxes have to be accessible to, among others, the blind. When I worked for a .gov, our website went through a LOT of testing to make sure it was screen reader compliant. And yet, our money, a bit more pivotal than a seldom-used website, seemingly has no such requirements on it.

It might just be that changing it would require so many infrastructure changes (every ATM, every change machine, every vending machine that takes paper money, the self-checkout lanes at the supermarkets, every machine that handles money) that Treasury just says "To hell with it."

US paper currency is archaic. BoE&P is using band-aids and moving the target, but it's not a good solution. Of course, knowing this country, if we redid currency, they'd want to put a smart chip in it or barcode or somesuch. TO PREVENT TERRORISM and oh yeah anonymity in general.

Re:I Always Liked the Green Bills

[nlinecomputers]

I don't recall a ton of outrage over either dollar coin -- merely apathy. The only outrage I've had over the Sacajawea dollar is that the postal service machines will happily issue it, but generally don't accept it (I think my mug is in a database somewhere for abusing the machine after that incident).

Back in 1979 when Carter tried to issue the dang coins there was a LOT of outrage about it. The plan was to remove dollar bills from use and replace them with the coins and $2 bills. The plan was quickly abandoned when the market refused to use them. The golden dollar was just issued as a political stunt and was never intended to replace $1 bills. So it is met with Appathy or hoarded as trinkets. The government could have said "too bad" use them or do without but as our money system is now unbacked fiat money acceptance is required or the value of the money drops.

I don't get it.

[CGP314]

There will be no recall or devaluation of any U.S. currency. Old or new, all U.S. currency always will be honored at full face value.

So, tell me, if I'm a counterfitter, why wouldn't I just copy the older bills and 'age' them in the washing machine?

Re:I don't get it.

[Senior Frac]

I suggest you take a closer look at your bills. "This note is legal tender for all debts, public and private." The bills must be accepted for the payment of debts, services, etc., by U.S. law. You cannot pick which bills you will or will not accept, under U.S. law.

A common misinterpretation of the text. If you think carefully, it implies no obligation for me to accept it. Why can't I pay for my $150 grocery bill in pennies? That's "legal tender."

No, it's legal tender in that it can be used. Not that it must be accepted.

Re:I don't get it.

[Saeculorum]

Except you can pay for a $150 grocery bill in pennies. I've done it. Unless the store explicitly states that they will not accept legal tender, they have to accept it. Now, there's no reason a store can't demand payment in something other than legal tender (like rubberbands or something), but the moment they ask for legal tender (ie, displaying prices in dollars and cents), they have to accept all legal tender - including pennies.

Re:pssst: the counterfeiters are winning

[Anonymous Coward]

But as long as the old currency is accepted and will be accepted at face value now and forever, why would any counterfeiter try to tackle the new notes when he could more easily make copies of the old ones? I guess he will have to make an eventual attempt, but he'll be able to avoid suspicion on account of passing out old notes for quite a while.

Stop making our currency so irregular

[91degrees]

It's a nuisance having all the notes different colours. They become less uniform. It's bad enough that they have different pictures on them. Can't they all be the same except for the value? Only the laziest of people and those stupid Canucks can't be bothered to read the number.

What's even more annoying is that small change comes in different sizes. Not only that, but the sizes are illogical. I mean come on! 5c is bigger than 10c! We need to make themn all the same size and all the same colour to remove this confusion.

Did anyone ask teh retailers?

[amichalo]

The issue I see with this form of anti-piracy copy protection is that the methods to detect fraud take too long.

When I worked in retail where a typical purchase was about $35, we saw Twenties all day long. The only thing we did was make sure it was put in the drawer facing the same way so the manager wouldn't get upset when he did the count that night.

For $50 or $100 we had a yellow pen that you ran on the bill and the ink would be brown for a good bill, black if it was not.

THAT'S IT - there was no using a microscope to read Jackson's lips as he spoke the word "Republic".

Bottom line is, unless retailers perceive there is a problem to their bottom line because the banks won't accept their cash deposits full of bad cash, the best solution is for the mint to print fewer bills and assume a certain percentage of fraudulent bills are in circulation.

It woudl save the treasury money on ink and cotton paper!

Re:Unloved $1 Coins Keep Expensive George Around

[Anonymous Coward]

If they would just put George Washington's image on the coin instead of some politically correct Indian or Negro image, then I might adopt the coin.

Re:Thats a lot of money for... ummm... money.

[teg]

Hardly, i have no numbers, but the EU had a huge programme to educate people about the EURO, i wouldn't be surprised if it had cost more...

That's a very different issue - a new currency, not just a new bill. The euro was replacing many currencies at different values used by different nations, merging them into one.

Re:High time

[warpSpeed]

Being an american I found that, while traveing to Euroup, understaning all the different denominations to be pretty straight forward once you could do the converions back to USD.

I think it is all what you are used too.

While this isn't a complete solution, at least the high-denomination notes will look different from the low-denomination notes, which will make it much less easy to, e.g., tip someone a hundred dollars instead of one.

Well, the various denominations of american money do look different from each other, they just don't use color cues to diffentiate themselves. I can't say I have had a problem accidently over tipping someone because I could not tell what the bill was that I was handing them. When you are used to ir you can tell what notes you are pulling out of your wallet without even seeing the number that is on them

You will find that, typicaly, lower denomination bills are softer and more worn. I think this is a good function of the paper that is used. I have yet to have a worn $100, and it is not too frequently that I have a crisp $1. (not that I have a lot of $100 mind you...)

Re:Euro - when will the usa adopt?

[MoP030]

duh, like e2 is a credible source.
all variations of "thaler","taler" and "dollar" stem from the silver coins produced at the "Joachimstaler Silvermine" (which is named after the village Saint Joachimsthal in the Erzgebirge in what is today Germany) where silver coins are produce since pretty early. You may look that up in your favourite book of etymology.
You may also know that Austrians speak german (or germans speak austrian, by the time the words came up nations like today didnt even exist).
So yes the term doller comes a word that is as much austrian as it is german. Just because some spanish guy used the term "taler" to denote something similar to a taler does not make it a spanish word.

Re:High time

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't know...different sized bills may float in a country where almost every man walks around with a purse, but in the US we carry wallets. When I visit Canada, there's nothing more annoying than trying to cram those giant notes into my wallet. They always end up sticking out and getting frayed edges.

You can have your fancy, Fisher-Price currency...we have practical currency here.

Re:Unloved $1 Coins Keep Expensive George Around

[Bizaff]

If they'd just stop printing the stupid one dollar bills, people would start using the coins.

I, for one, welcome our new coin overlords. Or something.

Re:High time

[Galvatron]

I've got to agree with the other people who say "look at the numbers." It's not our fault if your money gets you in the habit of looking at colors instead. As for it looking "odd," that's the entire goddamn point! We're used to it, so your money looks odd to us, and we don't want to switch (after all, we're the ones who have to look at it every day).

One thing that is funny, though: dimes do not state their denomination. Nickels and pennies say "five cents" and "one cent" respectively, and quarters are, of course, a quarter of a dollar. But a dime just says "one dime." How useless is that?

Re:High time

[RealAlaskan]

At last! Banknotes you don't have to read to work out the denomination of!
[snip]
... I expect that with some practice you get used to looking at the picture rather than the overall design ...

Read? Picture? Overall design? What country's banknotes were you using?

Here in the US, all banknotes (including the ones which were issued by private banks 100+ years ago) are clearly marked with large, legible numbers, which (follow closely here, this is deep) indicate the denomination. We use a 1 to indicate a one dollar bill, a 20 to indicate a twenty, and so on. No reading, no picture, no overall design.

If you're blind, you're in trouble. Otherwise, there is no problem .