I got a couple and find them nice looking. The clear window is probably the most striking feature as you can see through multiple bills.
They are a little ‘slippery’ or slick. I smeared ketchup across one and it rinsed off like a dream.
They crumple and get crinkly even at room temperature. After crumpling a note, the creases stay and don’t come out even if rinsed in hot water. (I didn’t try ironing…yet.) After being compressed in my wallet for a week there is a noticeable 90 degree bend from the fold in my wallet. I don’t know how long that will take to relax. The creases are still apparent, although flatter. One of the windows has a white colour around the fold, like you get when you bend clear plastic packaging.
I am curious to see what cold is like on them. While they are flexible and money-like now, I suspect they will be quite ‘crisp’ when cold.
I haven’t tried to spend one yet, but I suspect that it’ll be at a place where they have already received them (like Costco).
On Sunday I popped by a new ATM at a new bank branch, hoping for new $100s. The ATM noted that it only dispensed $50s and $100s, so my hopes were high.
Then my hopes were dashed, for all it spit out was $20s. Fuck the banks! Too bad I missed Occupy Thunder Bay’s fifteen person occupation outside of city hall that also took place on Sunday. Looks like a lot was accomplished by the 99% (well, actually it was 0.0122043496%, but who’s counting). Here’s an excerpt from the followup on Facebook:
Visit my local casino. The ATMs happily spew out hundred-dollar-bills, and the tables and machines happily take them.
I’ve seen and handled the new hundreds, courtesy of a cabdriver friend. Nice bills! I’m looking forward to seeing the other bills as they are introduced.
No, they’ll pass the test. I remember being in Australia a few times, and dealing with their plastic currency. It survived pretty much everything: bending, folding, crumpling, and so on. It was still accepted at shops and whatnot, no matter how beat up it was. Remember, the Aussies have been using plastic currency for quite a while, and I’m sure the Canadians considered the Australian experience before deciding to go to plastic currency.
| think it was a mistake in how they set up the machine, for around here, 20s are the norm (like I said, a brand new ATM at a brand new bank branch).
| wonder if places that presently refuse to accept 50s and 100s will start accepting the new ones? For example, I am on the road a fair bit where there are very few gas stations, and where most of them do not accept 50s or 100s, so I like to bring enough cash for at least one fill to get me to the next town in case the debit and credit card machines are not working (winter storms suck). Since a tank for me is $100, it would be nice to be able to use a $100 bill.
Ah. That explains it. I have been in a casino exactly once in my life (my sister and I went to the one in Sault Ste Marie, entered, wandered around for ten minutes, looked at each other, said, “This is fun?”, and left. )
The big change will be when the plastic twenty is introduced. Till then, many people (but not cashiers) will be able to glide past without paying any attention to them.
I got paid today, a huge relief after a very thin summer, and I went to the bank and withdrew some money in the form of one of the new banknotes.
My first reaction: “my, it’s beige”. The banknote seems quite muted in colour. I think that the brown accents and edges should be quite a bit darker.
The note has a texture unlike anything else: smooth, yet warm. One side was slightly slicker than the other. There is raised-ink printing, but it seems to be less prominent than on other banknotes.
The “holographic” stripe does not seem to be a true hologram, but rather its iridescent first cousin without an illusion of depth. When looked through at a light source, the stripe appears grey and translucent, not unlike certain preprinted CDs. The outline of the light was visible.
The note is covered in complex, attractive tesselated patterns that continuously vary in colour and linewidth. There is a transparent patch in the shape of a maple leaf, and looking at a bright point source of light through it, I could see the numbers “100” surrounding the light. The large transparent window surrounding the iridescent stripe contains both iridescent and bumpy transparent printing.
An interesting backgrounder from the Globe. Apparently the previous series of Canadian banknotes was being counterfeited ridiculously often, even with the holograms.
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