NEW $50 DEBUTS IN PITTSBURGH Pubblico Deposited
The E-Sylum: Volume 7, Number 36, September 5, 2004, Article 14
NEW $50 DEBUTS IN PITTSBURGH
Lost among the blockbuster rare coin exhibits at the recent
American Numismatic Association convention in Pittsburgh
was the first public display of the new U.S. $50 bill at the
Bureau of Engraving and Printing booth.From a local news story headlined "The new $50 bill has
more hidden features than James Bond's watch.":"The Treasury plans to begin circulating 140.8 million bills
Sept. 28, said Antoinette Banks, numismatic coordinator for
the Bureau of Engraving and Printing.This denomination accounts for less than 7 percent of all the
money in circulation, Banks said.Like the latest version of the $20 bill released last year, the
most striking feature of the new $50 bill is its abandonment
of the venerable monotone color scheme.The bill is colored at both ends in blue, red and purple. The
center portrait is still Ulysses S. Grant, but the border around
the 18th president is gone and his shoulders extend to the
bill's bottom border.""With 66 percent of U.S. currency circulating outside the
nation, American money is the most counterfeited in the
world, said Edward Arrich, 56, of Houston, Texas, who
is in town for the gathering.Most developed nations have switched to colored ink
because it's tougher to copy, and it's about time the United
States caught on, said Arrich, a numismatist since he was
12."There are countries where shopkeepers won't take $50 or
$100 bills older than 1991" because they've been
counterfeited so much, he said. On this new $50 bill, there
are 26 anti-counterfeiting measures, he said, adding
conspiratorially, "that are known, anyway."To read the full article, see: Full Story
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