Sunset Vette

Apparently the US Mint was not planning to redo the $5 bill like they have done the other larger bills. The main purpose behind the colors and other new design features was to make the new bills much harder to counterfeit. The plan to skip the $5 bill was revisited when government officials realized that counterfeiters were bleaching $5 bills and then reusing the paper to print $100 bills.

The government’s ongoing scrutiny of counterfeiting techniques has detected a pattern in which counterfeiters bleach the ink off of $5 notes, then print counterfeit $100 notes on the paper, deceiving the public because of similarities between the placement of the security features on the $5 and $100 notes.

For the full store you can read the full government press release.

But this isn’t the only challenge face by our money makers… a year or so ago the government lost a lawsuit from the American Council of the Blind. Seems that (imagine this!) with our bills all being the same size, it is a little difficult for blind folks to be able to tell if they are paying with a $20 or a $100. Other countries have bills of different sizes. Colors don’t help, obviously, for the blind, but can help those that are not completely sight-impared. Other suggestions included having raised patterns (like Braille marks) or different thicknesses of ink. One article that I found (on npr.org) said that the US is the only one of 180 countries that print paper money that does not offer some sort if distinguishing element for the blind.

“Of the more than 180 countries that issue paper currency,” Judge James Robertson wrote in his decision, “only the United States prints bills that are identical in size and color in all their denominations. Every other issuer includes at least some features that help the visually impaired.”

So after the redesigned $5 bill goes into production the government may have to turn around and redesign them all over again.

Your tax dollars (colored or otherwise) at work.