That’s our federal government – absolute ridiculous, bullshit answer, based on past problems that are now irrelevant and completely discounting what would be best and most convenient for the public at large …
But the answer nonetheless. Thanx, Manny.
“We are here for this – to make mistakes and to correct ourselves, to withstand the blows and to hand them out.” Primo Levi
Why would it be any harder for counterfeiters to reproduce red, say, as opposed to green? If the 20-dollar bill (the most commonly duplicated) were printed in fuschia, the criminals would quite easily and quickly switch to that color (at far less cost than the Mint could do it).
I just got back from Washington DC this last weekend. I went on a tour of the BEP (Bureau of Engraving and Printing) and the guide told us that by 2002 the $5 and $10 will be in the same style as the other new currency, and that by 2007 US Currency would be in a different color than green (and black). She said the color hadn’t been decided on yet, nor had it been decided as to weather or not each bill would get it’s own color, or everything was just going to switch to a single different color.
Good question. I have a couple of friends who are strippers, and the question has definitely come up. (Since the dollar bill is reputedly being phased out.)
I got a good answer from a manager: they would probably use that as an opportunity to switch to a “coupon” based system (like the tokens at some arcades). You go in, you buy a certain number of “coupons” for $1 each (with brightly colored and sparkley coupons for higher amounts) and you stuff the coupons in various assundry places instead of cash.
This would also add to business in a number of obvious ways. (If you left early, you’ve still spent all your money; if you bring home coupons, it’s more likely you’ll come back; they could mail a few free coupons as a promotional thing; having a glitsy $100 coupon on your wall could become a status symbol; they could require that you buy at least $20 of coupons when you come in; keeping those coupons in your wallet means free advertising; etc. etc.)
I really don’t see why they don’t do this now. If people aren’t hot on the idea at first, you could do what arcades do and offer $25 in coupons for $20 cash. Or instruct the dancers to “prefer” coupons. I don’t know; maybe there’s some zoning regulation against it. shrug
Off topic but interesting,
Your Quadell
Nick, perhaps I wasn’t quite clear. I meant multi-coloured bills, each bill having a different design with a different “background” color.
Right now, if I’m making 10s and decide to switch to 20s because 20s are more popular, I don’t need to switch inks.
A multi-color banknote may be easier to counterfeit, for the simple reason that multiple bright colors distract the eye away from seeing detail, which is the really difficult part of counterfeiting. That’s why a color TV image doesn’t have to have very high pixel resolution to look good, whereas Black and white does.
With a green-and-black bill, small details like the new holographic tags and rainbow inks stand out more prominently and are more likely to be caught by a casual inspection.
Cost of the inks has got to be a trivial matter, considering the costs of other details that are put into each bill. Anti-counterfeiting measures include a green plastic strip woven right into the cloth, holographic tags woven into the cloth, the aforementioned rainbow ink (there’s a spot on the new bills that changes color as your viewing angle changes - the ink that does it is extremely hard to copy, and the exact process for making it is a secret). Then there’s a micro-printing, which has gotten more and more detailed to stay ahead of high-resolution scanners and printers.
After going to all this trouble, the cost of dying the currency stock red or something would be a pretty small incremental cost.
And neither does the mint, which was my point exactly. C’mon, you really think a serious counterfeiter is going to bother printing 10-dollar bills and only switch to twenties because they’re “more popular”? (I mean if they switched at all, which in itself makes no sense either).
If you use different inks for different bills, the overall amount of ink you need on-hand doesn’t change. Yes you’d need to modify your storage facilities, but if that’s the only thing stopping this from happening, its a pretty lame reason.
“We are here for this – to make mistakes and to correct ourselves, to withstand the blows and to hand them out.” Primo Levi
Also
That “pretty small incremental cost” would add up to millions of dollars, and would do nothing to deter serious counterfeiters. Which is why the Mint has taken all of the steps Sam enumerated rather than make a useless, expensive cosmetic change. I don’t think saving the American taxpayer millions of dollars is a “pretty lame excuse,” either.
It’s not like they have a license to print money or anything.
[Note: This message has been edited by Nickrz]
Nickrz - I don’t know enough to adequately justify my statement.
I do know that when bills in Switzerland were redesigned, the following features were added:
Of course, I don’t know how much of a deterrent the multiple colours are. It was mentioned last on the list, and with the advent of colour copiers and printers, it’s probably not as important. But it does make the bills look better!
I’m not a specialist on this, but I remember seeing in the movie “To live and die in L.A.”, based on a novel by Gerald Petievich, a former Secret Service Agent, a scene where a counterfeiter is trying to hire someone to commit murder. The counterfeiter offers $100 fake bills, but the murderer says “nope, it’s gotta be twenties, hundred-dollar bills are too hard to pass off in this neighbourhood.” Of course, this is hardly evidence for counterfeiters wanting to try different bills, but I’m sure one could imagine many situations in which you might want to counterfeit different denominations.
To post an answer to a topic inside this one. The real reason why we don’t add letters to Zip codes is they are a pain for the typists. You can type a 5 digit zip or a 9 digit hypenated one easiy. But if you go with 5M6 3J7 it is realy 5 shift m 6 space bar 3 shift j 7. That is a lot more work.
President Kennedy made his first Treasury Secretary a woman. Her first big decision was to make the money multi-colored. The Republicans crowed “Isn’t that just like a worman-all she cares about is fashion.” The proposal was rescinded and the topic was jinxed for 40 years.