The New Five Dollar Bill Looks Less Crappy than the Other New Money!!

[SterlingNorth]

Well, the great monopolization of our paper currency has been completed! The new $10 and $5 bills are out now. However the five dollar bill looks competently designed. It does not look as crappy as the $100, $50, or $20.

They have found a good picture of Lincoln, first of all. Second, they finally learned that changing the font drastically makes it look amature. They refrained from going typeface-happy on the front. (The back still has that "vision-impared" 5 graphic on the corner). The portrat is still off-centered, but now it looks deliberate and professional. It fells even and centered. The back could have been done better however. From the graphic, the White House looks a bit cartoony.
C+
http://www.bep.treas.gov/5.htm


Obviously they did the five dollar bill last, because whatever lesson they learned by the time they redesigned Lincoln, they had no clue of on Hamilton. The $10 looks just as crappy as the other new bills. Hamilton looks incredibly fake, they have that wonderful "color-change" ten that destroys all symmetry (at least use the same typeface). Probably because of that the bill looks off-balanced. The five dollar is based on the same template but manages to feel balanced. And they get rid of the one thing that makes the ten unique: the perspective picture of the Treasure. Instead of viewing it from off the corner, you look straight on. That is a big mistake in my opinion.
D-
http://www.bep.treas.gov/10.htm

For those of us who have yet to see the new bills here are links to pictures. . .
http://www.bep.treas.gov/20.htm
http://www.bep.treas.gov/50.htm
http://www.bep.treas.gov/100.htm

[aseymayo]

I have to disagree - I think (no, wait, that's not the term. Isn't there some catchphrase I should be using? Oh yes). In My Humbug Opinion, it's a horrible portrait. I think they chose the least flattering picture of Lincoln they could find. Poor Abe - I've seen better likenesses in coloring books.

The $20 is the worst of the lot. Jackson looks like one of those dreadful Big-Eyed Child/Kitten pictures popularized by the Keenes in the 50's. I'm beginning to suspect the people picking these portraits have a grudge against history. I don't have high hopes of what they'll do to George.

[SterlingNorth]

George is safe.
They aren't redesigning the one dollar bill. Counterfeiters don't make too many copies of ones they say. Anyway, they got that dollar coin.

Anyway, I think Abe looks distinguished. Though they can't seem to get hair to look right. It looks like they colored the hair in. Also, everybody looks like they get their hair cut with a weed-whacker.

Of course they seem to flunk on basic design principles.

You have to admit, the five dollar bill looks the best of the sorry bunch.

[phouka]

Actually, I think the new Alexander Hamilton is a hottie. But that's just me, and yes, I am getting help.

[Fleetwood]

And I am still wondering why Peter Gammons from ESPN is on the twenty!

[SqrlCub]

The symmetry that you find lacking in the ten is an optical illusion. You noticed that Hamilton is looking to the left and is off-centered on the left hand side. Of course the optical effect will be that he is farther away. They could have had a better effect if they put the picture on the other side and left him facing the same way or even reversed his picture. If that would have happened then it would have made the balance significantly better.

The five looks alright because Abe faces towards the greater amount of open space. It is not as satisfying as it was when it was in the center but the angle he looks off to the right is such that it makes the offcenteredness look and feel better.

HUGS!
Sqrl

[Max Torque]

I think the original portrait of Lincoln on the five was the better picture, but what the hey.

Hamilton's new picture is much, MUCH better than the original. At least he no longer looks like a mugging victim.

[samclem]

But doesn't the $100 note look like Mr. Potato Head??

[Patty O'Furniture]

I just got done redesigning all of these bills, and they've beat me to it.

My Designs (http://www.geocities.com/attrayant_1/funnymoney/funnymoney.jpg)

[SterlingNorth]

opus, you've got a good eye for design!

[Commander Cyclops]

Isn't the Jackson pic on the new 20 the same as the old one, just enlarged and cropped?

The new Hamilton is much better. The old one looks like The Joker.

[pulykamell]

I seem to be the only person in the universe who actually likes the new designs. However, I think the left-facing Hamilton is a big mistake in terms of consistency with the other bills and the fact that he
should be facing into the bill, rather than outward. I feel it destroys the balance in the composition.

Otherwise, I really like the off-center positioning of the portraits, as the old design was, well, just plain boring and flat. That said, I'm not sure this design will "age" as well as the old one. I'm afraid that as design aesthetics evolve, this design will look horribly dated.

[aseymayo]

After finally seeing one of the new fives in the flesh, I have to admit, it's not as bad as I thought. (I had only seen it in the newspaper and at the website when I made my original snap judgment.) The new bills are starting to look like real money to me, so I guess I'll have to stop complaining about them - but I still think the state quarters look cheap and crappy!

Looking at the old versions of the $50 on the bureau's website was rather fun - I didn't recognize a lot of those portraits - and the evolution of Lady Liberty is revealing - literally. She appears quite matronly and modestly draped in the 1860's; a few years later, she looks like a young Queen Victoria with a naughtily bare shoulder. Her toga really starts to slip at the turn of the century and by 1918 she's Venus de Milo with a few added appendages. No wonder great-grampa was such a miser.

Opus, I dig your clams.

[Omniscient]

I must be odd because I don't dislike the fronts of any of the new dollars. They are different, but not bad. The larger protraits seem to be a good thing, better remembering some of the notable people. I think some of the images on the rear of the bills are less detailed and less artistic. That is my only complaint. I agree that I liked the off center drawing of the Treasury.

One question I have. They have redone all the bills, and don't intend to redo the $1. They have begun creating the Sackies, and I believe they are hoped to entirely replace the $1 bill. If that is successful, where does that leave George? Suppose that if sucessful we'll neither have the first or second presidents of bills in production. Kinda sucks since those men are probably the most prominet in any patriotic discussion you could have.

[Patty O'Furniture]

Who can identify all the personalities on my money? The lady on the $20 should be a giveaway but the other three might be a challenge depending on how much of a life you have.

[Commander Cyclops]

Yeah, they should have kept the same Treasury picture, maybe zoom in a little and clear the street. The old cars and the loiterers were starting to look strange.

[Arnold Winkelried]

originally posted by opus:
Who can identify all the personalities on my money? The lady on the $20 should be a giveaway but the other three might be a challenge depending on how much of a life you have.


A brain full of knowledge is the sign of a fulfilled life.

One clam - Bob from Bob's Big Boy.
Five clams - The Smurfette (La Schtroumpfette).
Twenty clams - Betty Rubble.
100 clams - Grog (from B.C.)

[Silo]

Personally, I think the fifty dollar bill looks the best.

[mega the roo]

Those bills look like the ones my brother and I used to get from Red Lobster.

[SterlingNorth]

Isn't the Jackson pic on the new 20 the same as the old one, just enlarged and cropped?
Commander Cyclops
06-05-2000 02:00 PM ET

I don't think so. I'm looking at the both in my hand side-by-side now. It looks like the thing he is wearing (it looks kinda-like a cross between a collar and a cape) is tighter around his neck on the new $20.

The darks of his eye look bigger (even accounting for the fact the head is bigger) and darker. And the hair on the new one looks less wig-like.

[tracer]

SterlingNorth wrote:

Hamilton looks incredibly fake, they have that wonderful "color-change" ten that destroys all symmetry (at least use the same typeface).

Gee, I'm sorry you don't like having a new anti-counterfeiting feature on the $10! :p

... which by its omission, I should add, makes the $5 easier to fake. But who cares if someone cranks out a boatload of bogus 5-dollar bills and damages the U.S. economy in the process? We get to "preserve the symmetry"! Heck, let's just throw out that watermark and plastic security thread while we're at it -- they're off-center to begin with. And those awful blue-and-red microthreads scattered throughout the paper! The paper would look so much more homogeneous and tasteful if they weren't there. Same goes for that microprinted "United States of America" going around the dead guy's portrait -- hidden messages are for nerds!

Can you tell that I like the color-changing ink?

[SterlingNorth]

Gee, I'm sorry you don't like having a new anti-counterfeiting feature on the $10! :p

... which by its omission, I should add, makes the $5 easier to fake. But who cares if someone cranks out a boatload of bogus 5-dollar bills and damages the U.S. economy in the process? We get to "preserve the symmetry"! Heck, let's just throw out that watermark and plastic security thread while we're at it -- they're off-center to begin with. And those awful blue-and-red microthreads scattered throughout the paper! The paper would look so much more homogeneous and tasteful if they weren't there. Same goes for that microprinted "United States of America" going around the dead guy's portrait -- hidden messages are for nerds!

Can you tell that I like the color-changing ink?
tracer

You're kidding...

So you're telling me, that the only way to copyproof our currency is to make it completely hideous, is that correct?

Is this the "eye-melt" theory of currency safeguarding?

You do realize that the arrangement of the various elements of anti-counterfeiting devices do not lower the effectiveness, right? I mean if they wanted to, they could douse all four corner numbers with the color-change ink you so adore, and succeed in both symmetry and our economic stability. The U.S. Treasury can go ahead and add whatever crime-detering toys the boys want, but at least spend the hour to ty to make it look like it was designed by the primate house at the National Zoo.

SterlingNorth
To further the study of currency design, please send me some examples. Preferedly in large denominations! :D

PS you'd better run, not walk to the Treasury Dept, tracer! They decided to not safeguard our ones at all. Think of all the damage to the economy if someone cranks out a boatload of bogus one-dollar bills! Time is of the essence!

[tracer]

SterlingNorth wrote:

You do realize that the arrangement of the various elements of anti-counterfeiting devices do not lower the effectiveness, right? I mean if they wanted to, they could douse all four corner numbers with the color-change ink you so adore, and succeed in both symmetry and our economic stability.

And in increasing the cost of printing each bill. Putting a number-shaped pattern of color-changing ink on a bill adds a couple cents to the cost of printing it. Putting four such number-shaped patterns of color-changing ink on the bill would be nearly four times as costly as putting one pattern on it. It's a balancing act between increased security and increased production cost.

PS you'd better run, not walk to the Treasury Dept, tracer! They decided to not safeguard our ones at all. Think of all the damage to the economy if someone cranks out a boatload of bogus one-dollar bills! Time is of the essence!

Actually, that's been a ... er, well ... shall we say "tradition" for about a decade now. In the early 1990s, before the modern currency re-design was even a glimmer in the Treasury Department's eyes, U.S. paper money started being printed with a polymer "security thread" emdedded in it that said "USA" and the denomination over and over in little teensy uppercase letters. (You can see it if you hold the note up to the light.) However, the $1 did not get this new security thread. Nor did the $1 get the microprinted "THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA" around the portrait like all the other denominations did.

The reason? The same reason why the color-changing ink only appears in one place on the new $10 and larger bills: production cost. A $1 bill in circulation only lasts for an average of 14-18 months before it's too ratty to use anymore -- and even when they are in circulation, they're only worth one lousy dollar anyway. A security threads would add significantly to the production cost of a new $1 bill.

[tracer]

Oh, and SterlingNorth:

Yes, I realize that what you're really saying in your P.S. is that counterfeiting 5-dollar bills would be pointless 'cause they're not worth very much anyway. :p

[SterlingNorth]

SterlingNorth wrote:

You do realize that the arrangement of the various elements of anti-counterfeiting devices do not lower the effectiveness, right? I mean if they wanted to, they could douse all four corner numbers with the color-change ink you so adore, and succeed in both symmetry and our economic stability.

To which tracer responds:
And in increasing the cost of printing each bill. Putting a number-shaped pattern of color-changing ink on a bill adds a couple cents to the cost of printing it.
Who said that was the only way you could add color shift ink to the batch. Must I list every single possibile location for the color change ink so that we could debate the cost-effective merits on each.
OK lets begin.

On the shield of the Department of Treasury
On the signature of the US Treasurer or Secretary of Treasure (or both)
"The United States of America"
on the initials of the above
"Federal Reserve Note"
"In God We Trust"
on the disclamer "This note is legal tender for all debts, public and private."
on the text that denote the value of the bill ("TEN DOLLARS")
On the names of the featured portrait
on the stamp that denotes which bank produced the note.

I'm sure you could come up with more.

SterlingNorth