4 ms·

It absolutely makes sense for the Treasury to generate new bills with technology/features that stays ahead of counterfeiters. But changing bills every several

by skue 13y ago

It absolutely makes sense for the Treasury to generate new bills with technology/features that stays ahead of counterfeiters. But changing bills every several years can also produce unintended consequences. If new bills are constantly arriving while multiple generations of older bills remain in circulation, it's hard to know what exactly what we should be looking for with each bill. For counterfeiters, the best time to start generating old bills is probably right after the introduction of new ones. I'd like to think the government took this into account…

nwzpaperman 13y ago
It's just marketing...how many people do you know that keep a single Benjamin laying around much less 10+? The fact is that most of what everyone uses as money is "inside money" that banks conjure up and charge interest on in perpetuity. The world quickly devolves when the ROC on this benchmark goes flat and the social world heads for chaos when it goes negative. http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/series/TCMDO http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/series/TCMDO
VLM 13y ago
best plan is generate new bills in a different denomination. Hmm these new $20s look kinda like the $100s but not as good, well, yeah they're only worth 1/5 as much whaddya expect? This eliminates confusion over someone holding a real new $100 and a fake new $100 and wondering which is which.
chiph 13y ago
Your #2 -- every so often there's a news story about some fast food worker that calls the cops on a customer that tries to pay with either a $2 bill, or one of the old 20's that has the small portrait. Hilarity ensues. I also seem to recall that a lot of each new version gets shipped overseas right away. People there hold onto US dollars as protection against their weak government/banks, but they're used to having their old currency being declared null & void and having to exchange them (with government imposed exchange limits and poor exchange rates). So they want to have the newest bills even though the old ones are still valid currency.
- tanzam75 13y ago
  Many foreign banks will only take the latest iteration of US currency. Thus, holding onto the old bills would create unnecessary friction. You'd have to take the cash to the United States to be guaranteed to exchange them for face value. But cash exceeding $10,000 has to be declared to the customs agent -- which is even more frightening. Better to exchange it right away, so you know you can use it wherever you go.
capecodcarl 13y ago
I've always wondered what incentive counterfeiters even have for trying to copy these new bills. I have several $100 bills from around 20 years ago that I keep in a safe as an emergency reserve and they're still legal tender as far as I know. Why wouldn't counterfeiters just continue to counterfeit the older bills?
- alexeisadeski3 13y ago
  I think that the anti counterfeiters are planning decades ahead with each revision. Even the older Benjis are still very hard to counterfeit - all of these new changes are targeted almost exclusively at North Korea's advanced counterfeiting program. So decades ahead.
  - Wingman4l7 13y ago
    Are you referring to the Superdollar? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superdollar https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superdollar
    - alexeisadeski3 13y ago
      Yep! :) The North Korean (supposed) counterfeiting operation is pretty fascinating all around.
- seanmcdirmid 13y ago
  Most one hundred dollar bills are used overseas, where your old ones wouldn't be accepted in most places but a careful bank. Even in the USA, merchants will refuse bills that they aren't comfortable verifying.

by skue 13y ago

nwzpaperman 13y ago

It's just marketing...how many people do you know that keep a single Benjamin laying around much less 10+? The fact is that most of what everyone uses as money is "inside money" that banks conjure up and charge interest on in perpetuity. The world quickly devolves when the ROC on this benchmark goes flat and the social world heads for chaos when it goes negative. http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/series/TCMDO http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/series/TCMDO

VLM 13y ago

best plan is generate new bills in a different denomination. Hmm these new $20s look kinda like the $100s but not as good, well, yeah they're only worth 1/5 as much whaddya expect? This eliminates confusion over someone holding a real new $100 and a fake new $100 and wondering which is which.

chiph 13y ago

Your #2 -- every so often there's a news story about some fast food worker that calls the cops on a customer that tries to pay with either a $2 bill, or one of the old 20's that has the small portrait. Hilarity ensues. I also seem to recall that a lot of each new version gets shipped overseas right away. People there hold onto US dollars as protection against their weak government/banks, but they're used to having their old currency being declared null & void and having to exchange them (with government imposed exchange limits and poor exchange rates). So they want to have the newest bills even though the old ones are still valid currency.

tanzam75 13y ago
Many foreign banks will only take the latest iteration of US currency. Thus, holding onto the old bills would create unnecessary friction. You'd have to take the cash to the United States to be guaranteed to exchange them for face value. But cash exceeding $10,000 has to be declared to the customs agent -- which is even more frightening. Better to exchange it right away, so you know you can use it wherever you go.

capecodcarl 13y ago

I've always wondered what incentive counterfeiters even have for trying to copy these new bills. I have several $100 bills from around 20 years ago that I keep in a safe as an emergency reserve and they're still legal tender as far as I know. Why wouldn't counterfeiters just continue to counterfeit the older bills?

alexeisadeski3 13y ago
I think that the anti counterfeiters are planning decades ahead with each revision. Even the older Benjis are still very hard to counterfeit - all of these new changes are targeted almost exclusively at North Korea's advanced counterfeiting program. So decades ahead.
- Wingman4l7 13y ago
  Are you referring to the Superdollar? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superdollar https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superdollar
  - alexeisadeski3 13y ago
    Yep! :) The North Korean (supposed) counterfeiting operation is pretty fascinating all around.
seanmcdirmid 13y ago
Most one hundred dollar bills are used overseas, where your old ones wouldn't be accepted in most places but a careful bank. Even in the USA, merchants will refuse bills that they aren't comfortable verifying.