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

  Wayne Homren, Editor

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