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New $50 bills unveiled

The federal government announces the latest currency redesign: U.S. Grant puts on a new face.

The Bureau of Engraving and Printing Monday unveiled a redesigned version of the $50 bill, the latest in a series of currency redesigns intended to thwart counterfeiters.

The decision to redesign the $50 was made last year, and announced simultaneously with the new $20. Those smaller-denomination bills were released to the public beginning in October 2003.

The new look of the $50s was displayed at a ceremony at a printing plant in Fort Worth, Tex., where the notes are to be made. Production will begin this summer, according to Bureau spokeswoman Dawn Haley, and the new $50s should enter general circulation at the end of September or beginning of October.

Generally speaking, the bills follow the aesthetic guidelines set out by the $20.

For example, pastel tones will augment the old green and black color scheme, even more vibrantly than on the new $20. Ulysses S. Grant will continue to be pictured, but his face appears more prominently, as Andrew Jackson's does on the $20.

The number 50 is presented in a variety of newly introduced fonts. On the back, the engraving of the Capitol Building has been altered slightly as well.

"This $50 note is beautifully designed and includes important anti-counterfeiting features," said Federal Reserve Board governor Mark Olson, in a speech made at the unveiling ceremony. Fighting note forgery, he added, "is a job that's never finished."

Although colorization is the most immediately visible difference between the new and old bills, other anti-counterfeiting features may be more technologically significant. These include an embedded plastic strip running vertically; a watermark image engrained into the paper itself; and color-shifting ink, whose appearance changes as you tilt the bill against light.

When the $20 was unveiled, the Bureau launched a large, consumer-focused marketing campaign to explain the redesign to the public. The government spent about $12 million in advertising, and arranged product placement deals to insert the bills onto a number of national TV shows, including the game shows "Jeopardy" and "Wheel of Fortune," and sporting events aired on ESPN and ABC.

This time, "there will be more of a business-to-business focus to our public education efforts," said Haley. The Bureau is working with vending machine makers and others to ensure a smooth rollout when the new $50s are released in the fall.

When the $20 launched, a snafu arose involving self-service cashiers, those new, do-it-yourself checkout machines. A handful of the machines did not update their optical-recognition software to read the redesigned notes -- a small glitch, but one that left the BEP red-faced nonetheless.

"The technology was so new, we missed a few," acknowledged Haley.

Fun Facts about the $50

• The $50 debuted in 1862
  
• Ulysses S. Grant has been on the $50 since 1913.
  
• The average lifespan of a $50 is five years.
  
• There are approximately 1.2 billion, or $58.2 billion, $50s in circulation.
  

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Additional Article:

U.S. $50 Bill Gets Hi-Tech, Colorful Makeover Designed to Make Money Harder to Counterfeit

WASHINGTON April 26 ? The $50 bill is getting splashes of red and blue, the second of the nation's paper currencies to sport new hues beyond the traditional black-ink fronts and green-ink backs.

The makeover, unveiled Monday, is part of an effort to make U.S. bills harder to counterfeit.

The extra color is subtle, similar to the look of the new $20 bill, which went into circulation last fall with a color treatment featuring touches of peach, blue and yellow.

"The new design is more secure than ever before. We believe it will be extremely effective in discouraging counterfeiters," said Treasury Secretary John Snow. "It's also a lovely piece of currency, maintaining the historic look and feel of a greenback while incorporating the elements of other colors that are very important to us in this country: red, white and blue."

The redesigned $50 is the same size and still features Ulysses S. Grant on the front and the U.S. Capitol on the back. But the borders around both Grant and the Capitol have been removed.

The new $50 features subtle background colors of red and blue. The stars and stripes of the U.S. flag are printed in blue and red behind the portrait of Grant on the front. A field of blue stars is located to the left of the portrait, while three red stripes are located to the right of Grant. A small metallic silver-blue star is located on the lower right side of Grant.

Like the new $20, the redesigned $50 includes tiny yellow number "50s" scattered in the background on the back of the note.

Security features include embedded thread that glows when exposed to an ultraviolet light; color-shifting ink that looks green when viewed straight on and black when viewed at an angle; and watermarks visible when held up to light. Some of those features included in the last redesign, in 1997, were enhanced.

Events to take the wrappers off the new $50 notes took place in Washington and in Fort Worth, Texas, where the Bureau of Engraving and Printing expanded its existing production facility and built a tour and visitors center. The new center will allow people to view the production of U.S. greenbacks west of the Mississippi River for the first time, the agency said.

"Adding color is a good idea. It kicks it up a notch and makes it more difficult to counterfeit and adds interest to the bill," said Len Glazer, director of Heritage Currency Auctions in Dallas. "Other countries have been doing it for a very long time."

The bureau expects to print 76.8 million new $50s this year. New bills, however, aren't likely to go into circulation and start showing up in cash registers until fall. Old $50s will continue to be accepted and recirculated until they wear out; they average five years in use.

The bureau also plans to add color to the $100 bill, the most knocked-off note outside the United States. It has not been determined when the new $100 will be unveiled. Officials are still considering whether to redesign $5s and $10s. But $1s and $2s will stay the same because they aren't of much interest to counterfeiters.

Over the years, counterfeiters have graduated from offset printing to increasingly sophisticated color copiers, computer scanners, color ink jet printers and publishing-grade software. Trying to stay a step ahead of the counterfeiters is a challenge, experts said.

"Sophisticated counterfeiting is always going to exist. Whenever there is a way to make money illegally some people will grab for it," Glazer said.

Posted by thinkum at April 26, 2004 02:10 PM