There have been several threads about currency recently (British currency, photocopying US banknotes), which reminded me of something I have often wondered about:
Why are US banknotes all the same size and colour?
Whenever I visit the USA, I find myself having to get all the notes out of my wallet and examine them carefully before handing them over. A $20 bill looks pretty much like a $1 bill at first glance and I have to “read” the note each time.
In England and Wales,* we have four denominations of banknote (£5, £10, £20 & £50). The higher the denomination, the bigger the note (£5 = 13cm x 7cm). Each note is a different colour (£5 = blue/green, £10 = orange/brown, £20 = blue/purple & £50 = red/orange). We also change the designs from time-to-time, for example, we have just introduced a new £20 note featuring Edward Elgar (apparently they like facial hair: it’s difficult to forge).
Even without my glasses on (I’m very short-sighted), I can tell at a glance (and at a distance) the denomination of a British banknote.
It strikes me that our system is superior, but then again it’s what I’m used to and I’m sure that there is some good reason why the US does things the way it does. Can anybody tell me what it is, though?
[*Scotland and Northern Ireland issue their own banknotes, but notes from any part of the UK are legal tender in any other part (just don’t try explaining that to the cabbie at Euston at 6.00 a.m. when you’ve just got off the Caledonian Sleeper with a pocket full of Bank of Scotland notes).]
The Mint is too cheap to invest in different kinds of ink, and to start making the bills in different sizes would require the investment of millions of dollars in new cutting equipment,
Americans are squeamish about radical changes to their currency (I, for one, love the new Sackies, but the new 5’s & 10’s freak me out a little),
It just might be that the introduction of new bills (that’s what we call “notes” here) is the first step toward bringing on bills of new sizes and colors, but that reeks of conspiracy theorism and I CERTAINLY don’t want to go down THAT road.
I agree with that–it’s just cheaper to make all
bills one color and size.
Also, once you figure out the bills, they are
the same in the whole country. It’s not like
everytime you travel 100 miles, you have to
change money. It’s a system being used
on a very large scale.
I can see that it might be cheaper to print the notes all the same size and colour, but surely the cost of printing is de minimis in terms of the total Federal Government budget? After all, the UK, which has a much smaller population and a smaller GDP per capita can afford to do it.
They’re all the same color because they’ve always been the same color.
Well, pretty much. There used to be gold and silver certificates, which had a different second color of ink on the face (for the serial number and treasury seal). They haven’t made those in a long time. All bills are now “Federal Reserve Notes.”
Every once in awhile, a suggestion is made to color code the bills. No one is interested. Americans tend to think of money of colors other than the U.S. dollar as being “Monopoly money” (i.e., a toy and not to be trusted). Also the color green is associated with money in most Americans’ minds; other colors seem wrong. The Bureau of Printing of Engraving has been unable to get anyone interested in a different color scheme; they got enough flak for the simple redesign.
Same thing for size. American currancy has been the same size for decades, and there’s no groundswell of opinion to change it.
Americans are very conservative when it comes to their money. And since the Bureau of Printing of Engraving seems unable to dictate what to use (e.g., dollar coin, $2 bill), they have to stick with what people are comfortable with.
We can do that, too. It’s a matter of familiarity.
Even without my glasses, from a long way away I can
tell, at a glance, the difference between a 1, 5, 10, 20,
50 and 100.
When you’ve been handling the currency for 30 years,
it is second nature.
So, you want someone glancing at you from a block away to be able to tell, by a visible flash of color, that you just pocketed a roll of twenties rather than a roll of ones? Heck, why not just paint a target on the back of your jacket…
Can’t say for sure that this is true…I just always heard it
The secret service was always against multi-color notes. They claimed it was easier to counterfeit than the basic note the US has used since 1928(noting the different color seals, red, blue, yellow, used prior to 1963)
I have no idea about the counterfeitability{sp} of multi-color notes.
The idea that it is cheaper to print US notes in one size and color is probably wrong-headed. At least, as far as a reason to do so.
Am I the only one who thinks it is much more convenient to handle bills if they are all the same size? I just take all the bills in one wad, fold them in half and into my pocket. Try doing that with bills of different sizes.
As for telling them apart, it’s called literacy. I am near sighted which means I can see the money when it’s near. If it’s 20 feet away I really don’t need to tell it apart.
I imagine they’re the same size so that it’s easier to handle a stack of bills. It’d freak me out if they were different sizes.
If we had different colors, what would that do to our slang? It’s “greenbacks” and other “green” terms.
And to rastahomie:
But all our bills do say “Federal Reserve Note” on them. Try this out the next time you’re about to make a major purchase: ask if they accept Federal Reserve Notes. If they say no, flash a wad of bills, shrug, and say as you leave, “I guess I’ll go find someplace that does accept these then.” :D:D
Actually, according to a Discovery Channel documentary on counterfieting I once saw, plain old bills like the US’s are far far easier to counterfiet than multi-colored ones. Which makes sense, really - you only need to match one or two colors instead of dozens. In fact, it was the ease with which US bills could be faked that prompted the redesign.
C’mon, this is the government here! Whenever they start to lose money on a significant public scale, things change (see below).
As stated by RealityChuck, Americans have traditionally been against any changes to their money. To use recent examples: Ike dollars, Susan B. Anthony dollars. Besides, Americans are already familiar with the money they have. This is the main reason it took so long for us to even change the designs on the bills. The amount we were losing to easily counterfeited bills surpassed the estimated cost to re-educate and sell the public on new bills.
Anybody interested in looking up some absolutely gorgeous currency of ours, type “educational series” and maybe “currency” in a search engine.
Also, the gov’t theory is that people become so familiar with the money that counterfeits and the like are sifted out and will be turned in without ever being accepted. So then, I must ask: without looking in your wallet, who is on a $10 bill? What building is on the back of a $20? Of a $100? And they expect the public to find counterfeits?! I would say maybe five a week go thru a small franchise in a small town like mine. I suppose I should tell you that if you find a counterfeit bill you are to turn it in to the Secret Service or your local National Bank.
Note to AWB: I’ll bet your Silver/Gold Certificates or National Currency bills don’t have Federal Reserve Note on them
Well, I imagine the same-size bills are much easier for vending machines and changemakers to deal with.
Also, I have no problem telling them apart. When I need to pay for something, I just thumb through the stack I have until I find the right denomination; the number is right there in the corner for that very reason. (And I usually sort them out of habit, putting larger bills towards the back).
But I still don’t understand why dimes are smaller than nickels…sigh.
Because nickels were invented 69 years after dimes. Originally we had a halfdime, made out of silver, which made sense(as opposed to cents).
Halfdimes were so small they weren’t practical, so we came up with a nickel(in 1866). We needed a five cent coin, but bigger than the miserable little halfdime which we had.
But you had to make it out of some metal which wasn’t silver. Thus the nickel.
Why do you guys call them “bank notes”? I recall hearing that once upon a time banks issued their own bank notes. Am I remembering incorrectly? Do banks still do this?
“Banks” in the US were free to issue their own notes prior to the institution of a National Currency in 1862.
Some of them could still have their names imprinted on “National Notes” by the Government until 1929. But these were not notes issued by, nor backed by the individual banks. Just a throw-back to times gone by.
Well US currency is technically called “Federal Reserve Notes” because they’re made by the Federal Reserve, which is a bank, owned by private investors.
There’s a lot of hoopla over whether or not it’s Constitutional. (Don’t have the article off-hand, but Congress is the only body supposedly allowed to coin money.)
Rotating people/events on bills. We only have six commly circulating notes, but lots of people we should be honoring. Since all the fives will be the same color, why not allow ten different designs (at least).
No more singles or fives. They should be coin.
No more pennies. Zinc industry be damned.
There is a great site dedicated to increasing coin money. It’s www.coincoalition.org and is a good reference. Did you know that only one other developed country (Italy) doesn’t have a coin worth US$1? And they do have one worth over $0.50…
