Something new to chew on...

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New $5 and $10 bills to be unveiled 4.59 a.m. ET (1010 GMT) November 16, 1999 By Jeannine Aversa, Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP)  Abraham Lincoln and Alexander Hamilton are getting high-tech makeovers, an effort to foil computer-savvy counterfeiters trying to pass off phony $5 and $10 bills.

Both bills will have several new features, but it's the supersize portraits that most folks will notice first.

The bigger and slightly off-center portraits of President Lincoln on the $5 bill and Hamilton, the nation's first Treasury secretary, on the $10 bill are similar to what was done to President Andrew Jackson on last year's new $20 bill.

The redesigned $5 and $10 bills were being unveiled today by Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers but won't go into circulation until the middle of next year. An exact date hasn't been set. This will give vendors time to retool their machines to accept the new bills.

Old $5 and 10 bills will continue to be recirculated until they wear out, which on average takes two years.

The new currency is designed to make it harder for people to make bogus bills. Over the years, counterfeiters have graduated from offset printing to sophisticated color copiers, computer scanners, color ink jet printers and publishing-grade software  technologies readily available.

The bigger portraits are easier to recognize and their added detail harder to duplicate, officials said. Moving them off center, makes room for a watermark and reduces wear on the portraits, they said.

Other features on the new bills include:

 Watermarks based on the same artwork as the portraits are visible from both sides when held up to a light.

 An embedded polymer security thread. On the new $5 bill, a thread to the left of Lincoln's portrait glows blue when exposed to an ultraviolet light. The words "USA Five'' and a flag with the number 5 where the stars would normally be are printed on the thread and can be seen from both sides of the notes when held up to a bright light.

On the new $10 bill, a thread to the right of Hamilton's portrait glows white when exposed to ultraviolet light. The words "USA Ten'' and a flag with the number 10 where the stars would be are printed on the thread and can be seen from both sides when held up to a bright light.

 A numeral on the lower right corner of the front printed in color-shifting ink that looks green when viewed straight on and black when view from an angle is part of the new $10 bill. This feature isn't on the new $5. It's currently included on new $20, $50 and $100 bills.

 The words "Five Dollars'' in microprinting visible with a magnifying glass are continually repeated on both side borders. The words "United States of America'' are microprinted on the lower right and left edge ornamentation of the portrait's oval frame.

On the new $10 bill, the microprinted word "Ten'' is continually repeated in the numeral in the lower left-hand corner and the microprinted words "United States of America'' are repeated just above Hamilton's name. Microprinting appears as a thin line to the naked eye and blurred when copied.

 Very fine lines behind both Lincoln's portrait and the Lincoln Memorial on the new $5 and behind Hamilton's portrait and the U.S. Treasury Building on the $10. When duplicated, the lines come out in a wavy pattern.

The new bills will continue to be printed on cotton-linen paper as the old money so they won't feel differently and the colors of the ink will stay the same.

The $100 got a high-tech makeover in 1996, the $50 in 1997 and the $20, the second-most common U.S. bill in circulation, the following year. No decision has been made on whether to redesign the $1, the most common bill, and the $2 bill.

In fiscal year 1999, $180 million in counterfeit money was reported  a tiny amount compared with the $480 billion of genuine U.S. currency in circulation worldwide. Fives and tens comprise 13 percent of that currency.

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-- Roland (nottelling@nowhere.com), November 16, 1999

Answers

Since a number of stamp vending machines at the Post Office still don't accept the "new" 20's; I wonder how long it will be before they can accept the "new" 5's and 10's.

Also- car wash and laundry vending machines may have a similar problem with these new bills. unless their software is updated.

Perhaps the "vendors" were waiting to upgrade the machines until the new 5's and 10's came out so they could do it all at one time....

-- plonk! (realaddress@hotmail.com), November 16, 1999.

I'm paranoid about the strip AND the currency being worthless next year!

Kook

-- Y2Kook (Y2Kook@usa.net), November 16, 1999.

And now, for another interesting twist:

Web Site Tracks U.S. Bills

By JEFFREY BAIR Associated Press Writer

PITTSBURGH (AP) - Passing the buck doesn't have to mean goodbye.

A Web site, www.wheresgeorge.com, is designed to tracks U.S. bills as they trade hands from Los Angeles to Boston.

Bills marked with ``www.wheresgeorge.com'' have been through Ryan's Produce in Albany, N.Y., and the tax collector's office in Coffey County, Kan. A marked $100 bill bought a nail gun in Lorton, Va., and at last report was 20 miles away in Sterling, Va.

``I didn't think it would be as addicting as some people are finding it,'' site creator Hank Eskin said Friday. ``It's something out there on the Internet that's not porn, and it's not selling anything. It's pure fun. I think people appreciate that.''

The record starts when someone enters the serial number of a bill at www.wheresgeorge.com and marks the bill with the Web site address. About 3.5 percent of them will be logged again by someone else as they change hands, Eskin said.

Someone with the nickname ``Adam'' claims to have entered 65,051 bills into the site and has heard about 4,955 of them - a success rate of 7.6 percent.

Defacing U.S. currency is a crime, but federal law defines ``defacing'' as altering a bill so much that it cannot be used. Edward Sheehan, a spokesman for the Treasury Department's Bureau of Engraving and Printing, said it is legal to write on U.S. currency.

``We discourage people from doing that,'' he said.

The Web site hits are real. Three digits of the bill's serial number are masked by the site to prevent bogus entries. The site is named in honor of the U.S. president whose likeness graces the $1 bill.

``The ones ($1 bills) seem to get most of the hits,'' said Colleen Marsala, who has marked and logged about 1,300 bills in her spare time.

Marsala, who lives in suburban Pittsburgh, said she has been logging bills since August and has read of their travels as far as California. Money has fascinated her since childhood when she stamped money with a cartoon horse to see if she would get it back. She said she got one bill back at a movie theater.

``I've seen mine spent in bars, fast-food places,'' she said. ``I read where one was used to pay for a hooker.''

-- (where's@george.com), November 16, 1999.

Perhaps not completely worthless...but almost certainly worth LESS! There could be considerable inflation in the next 12 months. Mr. GreasePan has his hand right on the interest rate switch--he's warned us repeatedly that he'll up the rates. Then there's the injection of 50-70 billion extra in currency (as needed for y2k bank cash concerns)--more dollars chasing the same goods. Classic recipe for price increases.

-- Sceptic (willing@towait.com), November 16, 1999.