I’d put bar codes on them so that cashiers could just swipe them.
That the gummit didn’t think of this explains a lot.
I like the idea of depicting authors, poets and scientists on currency, as some Eastern European countries do.
On the reverse, I’d scrap the boring government buildings and instead depict natural wonders – Grand Canyon, Rocky Mountains, herds of buffalo on the Great Plains and so on – and/or Americana such as a baseball game.
Also, different sizes for different denominations; keep the same height, but longer lengths for higher denominations.
For coins, use the numerical denomination instead of spelling out the value; 5, 10, 25 and 50 instead of “five cents”, “one dime”, “quarter dollar” and “half dollar”.
I would cut down the size a lot. I would remove all people from the bill. Every one would have a joke printed on it.
Completely agree. I find it somewhat ironic that the same old farts who are so attached to dollar bills used nothing but coins for everyday transactions back in 1945; 50 cent meals in diners, five cent streetcar fares, 25 cent movie tickets, 75 cent haircuts and so on. They used coins when they were money, not just change.
Makes you wonder why they wouldn’t want to make the coins simpler, eh? I don’t see as many people my age carrying a coin purse as I do the older ladies and gentlemen that actually lived during the 1940s and 1950s, so it’d be an adjustment, albeit a fairly small one. Besides, it’s easier to carry around a handful of coins in a small coin purse than it is to carry a wallet with cards, bills, and other stupid things. We’re long overdue for $1, $2, and $5 coins (with the bills discontinued) that don’t get collected by morons who think it’s a valuable investment to keep money that’s still in circulation.
I also like the “historical figures” that aren’t politicians idea, as I was first introduced to it through Scandinavian currency. Image of the person on the front with their name and years of birth and death somewhere legible, and an interesting design that gives you at least a vague idea of what they did to the side or on the back. Adding nature scenes or monumental scenes as well, and add some more interesting color. Right now, our money looks dirty, not colorful.
I’d make it so you can fold it in half more than 7 times.
Heh. We have Charles Darwin on the back of the English £10 note - what are the chances of something like that happening in the USA? (OK, obviously not Darwin though, because he was English)
For currency, I’d make the fronts have different colors to make it easier for foreigners (who mostly use multicolor currency) to tell one bill amount from another. I’d also imprint the value in Braille on two corners, perhaps the top-right and reversed on the top-left, so that a blind person only has to feel one corner, regardless of whether it’s the front or back of the bill.
George can stay on the dollar, but if it becomes a coin then the $1 bill has got to go. And he has to give up the quarter. Put someone else on the quarter, perhaps Peyton Randalph or MLK?
With a $1 coin, make more use of the $2 bill. And Jefferson gets dropped; he’s got a lock on the nickel coin. Bring back Susan B. Anthony for the $2 bill, perhaps.
Reactivate the $500 bill. We’re going to need it soon enough anyway.
I have a German 10-Mark note that has Johann Friedrich Gauss (I think) on one side and a whole bunch of stuff about math and surveying on the other. I have a Swedish 50-kroner note that has Jenny Lund on one side and a cross-section of a music hall, with music and instruments, on the other.
The Canadian notes have, as follows:
$5 front: some politician or other.
$5 back: Canadians at Play. People tobogganing and playing hockey. Poetry. Snowflakes.
$10 front: some politician or other.
$10 back: Veterans, peacekeepers, the war memorial. Poetry. Doves.
$20 front: the Queen.
$20 back: Art. Extremely-cool Haida art and sculpture. (The twenty is my favourite Canadian banknote.)
$50 front: some politician or other.
$50 back: Human rights. Poetry. The sculpture of the Famous Five that’s on Parliament Hill. Therese Casgrain.
$100 front: some politician or other.
$100 back: Communications. Maps. Poetry. A satellite. A canoe.
You US people can do better than that. Think of all the accomplishments of your country!
Why not put the Apollo Project on a note? How many countries can claim to have landed people on the moon?
Why not the Model T and freeways and streamliner trains and the DC3?
Why not Sousa and jazz and rock-music and hip-hop and all the world-changing music your country has produced?
Tits.
Yes, Darwin being English is the reason why he’d never appear on American currency :rolleyes: .
Love, love, love the idea of these coins, or at least the one and two dollar ones. But I think they need to come up with a fake gold alloy that will stay golden. The public might be more receptive of, say, a half-dollar, dollar, and two-dollar coin that were all made of the same “golden” metal, and sized as if their values were based on the metal (even though they’re not). So the half-dollar coin would be exactly half the size of a Sacagawea dollar, and the $2 coin would be exactly twice the size. But they need to come up with a non-tarnishing alloy. This will help people easily recognize their high value change in everyday transactions.
Here’s my list.
The penny and the nickel are gone.
The dime stays as it is.
The quarter is gone.
Half-dollars make a comeback, made of the same material as dollars and exactly one-half smaller.
Dollars coins - like the present day Sackies or presidential dollars.
Two dollar coins - same metal, twice the size.
Paper bills from 5 on up, the backs all to have scenes from different national parks. I would like to see those rotated so more could be included.
The Apollo 11 LEM on the Moon would look good on currency.
Well there did use to be a Model-T-ish car on the back of the old ten.
Actually if you look at the history of American paper currency there used to be a lot more interest and variety in the notes. This was partly because different agencies might produce notes in the same denomination that were totally different. All or most nationally chartered banks issued notes on their own assets using a uniform format from the government. Then the Federal Reserve, from 1913 on, issued its own notes, and finally the U.S. Treasury itself, which now only issues the coins, used to issue its own note series.
Early Federal Reserve notes were different, and I’ve seen one from before 1920 that had some kind of a naval scene on the back. Ships and oceans do work well on paper money, and I’d like to see that sort of thing again.
I think the early variety in our paper money resulted mainly from the fact that there was such resistance to having a central bank early in our history. That’s why even today the bills say just “Federal Reserve System” and not “Central Bank Of The United States”, which is exactly what it is.
Nah, birds are boring. 
I’d keep everthing in place-just revalue the currency-one new dollar = 10 “Old” dollars! Think about it-a penny is actually WORTH picking UP! A quarter is now $2.50-enough for a BIG MAC. So many problems solved-no need to print up vast amounts of $1.00 notes-they now are $10.00!
Plus, the deficit shrinks by 90%!
It’s just east Europe, is it? 
Since the Bank of England started doing this (surprisingly recently, 1970), we’ve had:
Scientists/engineers: Isaac Newton, George Stephenson, Michael Faraday, Darwin
Arts: Shakespeare, Dickens, Elgar
Social reform: Florence Nightingale, Elizabeth Fry
Perhaps fits into all three above catagories: Christopher Wren
Two economists, and one lonely man of war: John Houblon Adam Smith, Duke of Wellington
Who next - Brunel? Emmeline Pankhurst? Nelson? Turner? It’s nice to be able to have a long list…I’ve always felt sorry for the Swiss, who have had to plump for Honegger
