The new $50 bill employs several ways to make it more difficult to produce counterfeit copies of the currency. (AP Graphic)
WASHINGTON - Coming to cash registers near you: colorful new $50 bills sporting splashes of red, blue and yellow.
The bills, the second denomination of greenback to get the color treatment, were going into circulation on Tuesday as part of the government's continuing effort to thwart counterfeiters.
Anon, that's probably true in a lot of countries, but at least the slots can be all one size in this country. Many stores did not like the two dollar bills because cash registers weren't built with a slot for them--not because they were a different size.
Notes of the same size are easier to design for by cash register makers. Stamp machines and other machines that take paper money, I would think might be harder to design if notes were different sizes. When I was on RnR in Australia back in the '60s, I do not remember the different denominations there, having different sizes.
I don't see that many 50 dollar bills to know if what you say is true, I would think it would take some terrific slicer to split a bill. Also, some of the other stops to counterfeiting before our treasury department turned the cash into gaudy funny money, such as watermarks, color changing emblems, and a strip that identifies the denomination of the bill, are quick and easy ways to see what denomination the bill is. Clerks who are not paying attention, would be fooled by a copy machine copy of a bill anyway. Nothing fancy would need to be done to fool those types, unfortunately.
I've always been puzzled that US banknotes are all the same size and colour, no matter what the value. It seems a bit confusing.
And I've heard of people peeling the back and front off a $1 note and a $50 note, and then reapplying the halves, so that you have two notes, each with $50 on one side and $1 on the other.
That way you get $100 out of $51, and when things are busy in a shop you might get away with passing the false $50 notes.
The more they make this money look like something from South Vietnam, the easier it is going to be able to counterfeit it. The more "busy" the engravings, the less people will look at the bills. They should just have a few things that are not able to being counterfeited, and stop messing with all this other stuff -- which the Iranians will be able to copy soon, anyway.
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