The Tech of Making Money

In this episode, Jonathan and Chris delve into the history of monetary systems and the various technologies that go into creating currency.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera.
It's ready. Are you get in touch with technology with
tech Stuff from how stuff works dot Com. Hello again, everyone,
and welcome to tech stuff. My name is Chris Polette,

(00:20):
and I am an editor here at how stuff works
dot Com, sitting across from me as usual as senior
writer Jonathan Strickland. Greed is good. Okay, then that's a
Wall Street reference, the sequel of which will be coming
out in theater soon. Wow. Really, yeah, there's a single
to Wall Street. Yeah. Yeah, it's got Shia La Booth

(00:43):
in it. Anyway, So that the reason I said greed
is good is because we're going to talk about currency. Yes,
we are the tech of making money. Yes, what it
requires to get that cash in your hot little hands.
But before we get into that, I thought talk a
little bit about the history of currency. This is kind
of a stuff you missed in History class mini section.

(01:06):
What we should do is get Liz to play the
first few notes of the stuff you missed in History
class theme. So we'll wait. Hi, this is Jonathan, not
Katie or Sarah. I am not nearly as as articulate

(01:28):
or pretty as either of them, and I have far
less hair on my head. So we want to talk
about the history of currency. So the first coins. Okay,
back back before there were coins, you know, essentially everything
was based upon bartering, right, and then there was salt. Yeah,
well again that's also a kind of currency. But but

(01:50):
before coins, yeah, there were some things that would represent
wealth and could be used in the currency. Cocoa beans
also were used as currency at one point to help
balance out trade systems. But really, you know, you got
to this point where it just became really difficult to
trade stuff for other stuff, right, So that's when people

(02:12):
started coming up with this idea of currency. It's something
that represents the purchasing power so that you can get
hold of something else. That person can then use that
same currency to go and purchase stuff that they need.
Brilliant system because it's way more portable than carrying a
cow and three chickens with you whenever you want to
go and buy some wheat and I'll ferguson you're not, yeah,

(02:37):
fight me. So anyway, let's let's go back to Lydia. Lydia,
that Encyclopedia Lydia, which was it's a an empire that
was well, where modern day Turkey is now, there was
a Lydian king who decided to start making coins. Do
you know this guy's name? Yes, you do, you just

(02:58):
don't know who it is. It's Creases, Oh yes, Cress. Yes,
to be rich as Creases. Well, the reason we say
rich as Creases is because Crisis is the guy who
came up with this idea of stamping coins with a
imperial emblem on them. They weren't known as Cress pieces,
were they. Oh you know what, folks, if you could
have seen his face leading up to that, I could

(03:19):
tell that he had something and I almost wish I
had not paused for breath. Uh So, yeah, Crisis came
up with this idea of of stamping metal ingots to
create coins. This is around six b C. So that's
kind of where the idea came from. Now the idea
for a currency as in paper notes that came later later,

(03:41):
Um yeah, because I mean, who the heck trust paper? Right? Chinese?
Did the Chinese came up with the idea for paper
notes well before anyone else. Did you bring up a
good point? Please? Trust? Trust is very important. Yes, it's
all about trust. Currency is based upon trust uh. In
the United States until ninety one. That trust is that
the piece of paper or the coin that you held

(04:04):
represented a certain amount of gold, right, and that in theory,
you could go to the US government and exchange your
currency for the equivalent value of equivalent amount of gold
that would be the same as the value of the
currency you were handing over. Right, So you're you're giving
them a piece of paper with Benjamin Franklin's picture on it,
and we're going to give you gold in return, dollars

(04:26):
worth of gold exactly, since it's a Franklin, because it's
all about the Benjamin's baby. But in ninety one, the
US decided to abandon the gold standard. It really wasn't practical,
I mean there was. They reached a point where if
everyone turned in their currency, there would not be enough
gold to support that. They just there's none of gold

(04:47):
in the reserves to support the currency. So now um
currency is kind of the trust is based upon a
group hallucination that the money is actually worth something much better. Now,
speaking to our producer Tyler, and we came to the
conclusion that our our trust in the system of money

(05:07):
is equivalent to Wiley coyote running off the edge of
the cliff before he's noticed that there's nothing under him.
You know, he never studied law, right, So if we
ever notice that money is not really based on anything,
they'll be panic and we'll all not be able to
buy anything. So just let's continue the group hallucination, please,
because I got bills to pay, y'all. And uh, but so,

(05:30):
really money is just representing buying power, how much buying
power you have? And we want to talk about the
tech of making money, and before we get into the
actual tech of it, one other thing I wanted to
point out is that you can't solve money problems just
by printing more currency. Nope, that's not how it works.
It can just doing that. First of all, you have

(05:51):
to find a way of getting currency into circulation, So
you can't you can't just print money. I mean, what
are you gonna do Give it out to people for free.
That doesn't work either, because that causes inflation because now
money has been devalued, it's not worth what it what
used to be worth, and so now you have to
have more money to buy the same things that you
needed before. Um, the way that wealth is generated, the

(06:13):
way money is actually created is through loans. This is
getting really technical, but when you take out a loan,
you're charged interest, which means ultimately you're paying back more
money than what you got in the first place. Yes,
that's what's generating the money that that is coming out
of the you know what. We you can print as
much money as you want to get into circulation, you

(06:34):
have to have the loan system there. Yeah, also was
not very big in the Bible. But uh, at any rate,
let's get into the tech of making money, and we
want I wanted to start with coins. Yeah, some of
the some of the tech that they used to make
money is actually very very old. Yeah, some of it.
Some of it has been around for centuries and it

(06:57):
requires a level of artistry that is phenomenal. No, I know.
And and this is one of those things that any
time it comes on one of our the channels that
make up our parent company, one of the Discovery channels,
and there's I've seen a couple of specials on how
they how they make money and how they make the
stuff behind money as in the paper and all the

(07:19):
the things that become money. Just fascinating the metal stuff. Yeah,
if we're going with coins, we're gonna stick mainly to
the United States, I think, mostly because I mean that's
where we live, so it's the information that's easiest for
us to access. But really most of these processes are
similar throughout the world. They may not be using exactly

(07:39):
the same kinds of machines, but they're using a very
similar process. So to to make a coin, uh, it's
a fairly complex process. The first thing you're gonna need, um, well,
there's two two main things you're gonna need. You're gonna
need a die actually a pair of die um, not
like dice like excited. It's not that gonna die. It's

(08:01):
gonna say, come on, big seven, kind of like a stamp. Yes, okay,
you're gonna need a really really high quality stamp, and
you're gonna need metal. Uh So with designing the stamp,
I guess we can start with that because that's really
the basis of all the coins that we create. There's
a lot of newer tech involved in creating the stamp

(08:25):
these days because uh in in uh in earlier times
you would have to have the designer actually do this
by by hand, make the design by hand first, and
computers can be used to do that. Although not always yeah, uh,
in general, if you're doing it the old way, let's
say you get in the old way being not that old,

(08:46):
just so you know, because I mean the old old
way is that you would develop a stamp and you
would use a hammer and hand volt to create these things.
But that's getting a little too old. The modern era
of making currency, you have an engraver who designs the
coin two very specific standards, you know. So this is
the engraver has to design the coin, and the design

(09:07):
has to be approved before anything else can happen. Uh.
And then, assuming that you're using the old method where
you're you're not digitally modeling stuff, the engraver would use
clay or some other modeling material to build the first
model of the coin, which is going to be much
larger than the the eventual actual coin will be from

(09:32):
that mold from that model. Rather, you create a mold
using something like plastoline, and then you pour plaster of
Paris into that. And this is a well plaster. The
reason we use plaster of Paris is because they can
pick up details, really fine details and represent them accurately.
So now you've got a plaster model of the coin

(09:54):
um and then from that you have a machine that
creates a copper mole of it called a galvano. Yeah,
I didn't have that, uh. And then you make an
even smaller model of it. It's called a hub, and
this is made out of steel. And then you the
master hub is called the dye. Uh, so that you

(10:15):
have a steel dye that looks exactly the way your
coin is gonna look, but kind of in reverse because
it's a stamp. And you have to have two of those,
because you have to have one for the front and
one for the back. And and so that's that's how
you create your your stamp. There's actually even more involved
in that. I mean, there's this whole polishing section that

(10:37):
has to has to go through. By the time that
the steel die is ready to be used, it has
a mirror like finish because it's been polished so finely.
M all right, So that's your stamping stuff. Now you're
gonna have something to stamp right now. In in the
United States, it's a mixture of copper and nickel mainly,

(10:58):
although you also have zinc plated upper you have um
or or copper plated zinc rather or not the other
way around. But why would you have zinc plated copper.
That would be unusual. And we haven't always used the
exact same medals throughout or end alloys. Throughout the history
of currency. You can find some interesting, uh facts about

(11:18):
the various medals they've been used. And in most cases
it tends to be something like war broke out and
suddenly we didn't have access to all the medals that
we used to use for coins. As a matter of fact, Um,
my father, who was in World War two, UM has
a box of steel pennies because during World War Two
they used steel to make pennies instead of copper for
reasons of the war effort. And uh so I have

(11:41):
a whole bunch of those and they're worth you know,
about a penny nice well to the government. They are
they are worth exactly what they're worth. So, um, you
could have a collectible coin, who would which would be
worth a lot of money to a collector can take
it to the government. It's worth exactly, you know. It's
just like it's a stamps are right, stamps are worth

(12:01):
you know, if you put a very very rare you say,
you put an inverted jenny an envelope, it's worth exactly
to the post office. You know, postage. You'd still have
to add postage to it. You might be able to
sell it to a collector for thousands of dollars, but
the government's gonna take it at face value. Yes, exactly.

(12:21):
And that's again that goes back to our trusting anyway.
Um so yeah, alright, so steel pennies. Yeah, so let's
talk about the metal. You get these, You get melt
big bars of metal, You melt them down in a furnace,
You pour them into uh inget forms, and then you
can get and you cool that down, use water by
the way to cool it. Uh and then it actually

(12:43):
uses a couple of different cooling systems. And then you
take that to a rolling mill which is gonna turn
it into flat sheets. Okay, now, um, the US meant
pretty much gets these these flat sheets and coils. Yes,
they feed the coil. Coils are let's see, I've actually
got the stats here. A foot wide, feet long, abound

(13:07):
as thick as the final coin tends to be, and
it weighs about six thousand pounds. Yes, yes, actually there
there are some great photos of this, along with a
lot more detail than we'll probably get into in the
podcast at us MINT dot gov. Yes, some details and
the photos or you know, because you can see these
huge coils of metal, which are pretty awesome. It's pretty

(13:30):
intimidating really because you think, wow, that's that's a lot
of metal. Um. Now, these strips, these coils get fed
through a machine called a blanking press or the blanking presser. Essentially,
what that does is it cuts the metal sheets into
the coin shape. Um. Yes, actually cuts them into slightly

(13:51):
the slightly larger diameter than the way the coin will
eventually appear, because it has to create a little extra
metal on the edges to create a HM. So you
put it through the blanker, the blanking pressor get and
you get the blanks. That's what the unmarked flat discs
of metal are called. You get the blanks. You then

(14:14):
have to soften them, yes, which you do by putting
them into a furnace. You the furnaces about seven degrees
celsius or so this softens them a little bit. Then
you have to cool them and clean them. Uh. And
it's it's it's a process that actually uses various chemicals
to clean them. You're not just you know, putting them

(14:36):
through a washing machine. Although it's in a machine that
does look like washing machine. It does spin them. Um. Yeah,
although that's not necessarily true for for everything, because the
golden dollars slightly different process in which they use steel
shot to the kind of like bees. Yeah, a little

(14:57):
bit like bebes. You put it in there in that way.
It polishes them through brute force. Yeah. So yeah, the
the spinny thing. Did you happen to see what that's
called spinning? Well, did you see what it's called? Um,
it's the whirl away. So sp thing is not that
big a leap from the technical term of the world away.

(15:19):
That's true. Actually, it sounds like something you did to
see at the local carnival at your shopping mall. It
sets up and you're going, I'm not sure I want
to find that thing. Yeah, and and yeah exactly. We'll
polish away your impurities and will also take your money.
So you then, uh, once once you've cleaned and dried
the coins. Um, they moved to a thing called the

(15:43):
upsetting mill. Yes, it's very upsetting. I was going to say,
I'm sure they feel terrible after that. Right, So this
is the thing that creates the rim around the edge
of the coin and Uh. So once the upsetting mill
is done, the coins should be the right diameter. It
should be the same size that's going to be once

(16:04):
it's stamped. Um and uh. And it's done for a
very important reason. It helps and you know, by raising
the rim it helps them stack the coins a little
bit better. You'll notice it the you know, it's got
sort of a firm edge around. It also helps keep
the coins from a routing. And that's because that's one
of the benefits of using coins. One of the reasons
the United States government is pushing the golden dollars so

(16:27):
much is they last a whole lot longer than paper money. Yeah,
you don't have to keep making as much. Yes you can.
You know, you can make it as as circulation requires.
But um, you don't have to worry about you know,
the useful life of a dollar might be a decade,
but the useful life of a coin is could be
really a long time. Actually, I don't think paper money.

(16:49):
I just I just used that as I just pulled
that out of nowhere that somebody would write in and say,
now someone has the podcast already and they have written
in and to you, sir or madam, I would like
to say, please listen to the show all the way
through before you write us, because sometimes we correct ourselves.
Not often, I will grant you, but sometimes so. At

(17:10):
any rate, the next stage is where they might have
to to um, well, I guess the coining is the
next stage to bring on whether or not you need
to put ridges on the edge. The reads, the reads, Yes, yes, reading,
reading is fundamentals, especially if you need to. But yes,

(17:31):
it's R E, D, I N G. Right, and then
it would be coining. So I'm glad that you brought
that up because I almost totally forgot. And this is
where we add the actual design of the coin to
the blank which now, by the way, it's no longer
called a blank. Yes, once you've added the rim, it's
become a new thing called the plan chet. Yes, no

(17:54):
relation to Kate. Yeah, thanks plan chet as in poppies
and um will make you sleep. Yes. So once you
get to the coining, this is where those die that
we talked about the come in and you've got They
usually refer to the die in two different terms, very simple.
You got the the anvil and the hammer. The anvil

(18:17):
is going to remain stationary. The hammer is going to
strike the coin which is resting on the anvil, and
the force of the impact is going to stamp that
design on the planet and make it a coin. And
uh yeah, it resembles a hammer and an anvil and
function more so than form, because I mean, you wouldn't

(18:40):
recognize it as a hammer and an anvil in the
you know, looney tune sense of something dropping on your head.
Although I wouldn't want either one of those to drop
on my head. I also would not want those to
drop on your head. But um yeah, after after they
become coins, of course they are. They go to a
bin where they are inspected. Somebody takes a look at them,
make sure it makes sure that they are okay, and

(19:01):
I mean anything that that's not acceptable goes back for recycling,
as is the webbing for when they wake from when
they make the blanks. The metal that goes that that
they can't use, it's around it that gets recycled as well. Right,
All the webbing is the excess metal after the stamping process,
because of course, if you stamp a bunch of circular
things out of a sheet of metal, you're gonna be

(19:21):
left with excess pieces. Yeah, and quite a bit of
metal so that all gets melted down and recycled, as
do any irregular coins. Um. They actually the the first
irregular coins. Before you melt them down, they have to
be destroyed or they have to be uh marred, so
that it's clear that they are not valid currency. To

(19:43):
do so, they put them in special machines called wafflers.
I love the technology jargon of making currency wafflers. Man,
it sounds like a county fair. I know, it's a
county fair where all the prize is our money. Sign
me up. Um so yeah, these uh, these actually use

(20:05):
high pressure rollers to kind of put a predetermined pattern,
a ridged pattern across the coin that automatically marks them
as being not viable. And then they get sent to
the recycling furnace and then uh, the the coins that
are actually acceptable they fall into a box called a trap.

(20:28):
Now this part I don't like. I don't want to
fall into a trap at my world Away waffler fair.
I'm just waiting for you to do it, to fall
into a trap. Back, bar intoe, it's a trap. Nothing
could penetrate the shields. Um. That was terrible. That was

(20:48):
like the world's worst admiral. Acbar accent. Please don't write me.
Remember what I said about pausing the podcast. Um, I
have a quick thing of trivia before we move on
to currency, to paper paper money. Do you know why,
out of all the coins in that erin United States circulation,
why the penny and nicol are the only ones to

(21:10):
have images that don't face to the left. No, why, Chucks,
I was gonna hoping you knew that's gonna make this weird. No, okay, Um,
So there are a lot of different theories, you know.
So the penny, of course has a Lincoln there, and
the nicol has a Jefferson. Yes, Um, has nothing to
do with who they are beyond a very simple point.

(21:33):
So Abraham Lincoln penny was meanted back in and it
was to commemorate the hundred year anniversary of Lincoln's birth
UH and Theodore Roosevelt, who was president at the time,
chose a sculptor named Victor David Brenner to design the penny. Now,
Brenner had created a bust of a plaque really not

(21:54):
a bust, but a plaque of of Lincoln that had
him facing to the UH, to the right. It was
based off a photo of Lincoln where Lincoln was facing
to the right. That's the reason why the penny Lincoln
faces to the right. It's not there's no conspiracy or
weird philosophical thing about it. It's because the photo that

(22:15):
was used to create a plaque that was in turn
used to create the portrait in the penny, Lincoln was
facing to the right. All right, Now, Jefferson is a
little weird. He started facing out on the left. Ba
uh two thousand three, decided to look around, he did, No,
he didn't. He was in no position at that point.

(22:35):
But the President had enacted a law to revise the nickel.
And this was to commemorate the by centennary, by centenary
of Lewis and Clark. Oh, which makes part perfect sense, right,
If you're gonna celebrate Lewis and Clark, why not changed
the nickel. Oh you know, he was the guy who
sent them out there. Yeah. Yeah, So the US meant

(22:59):
decided to make a series of nickels. Yes, so it's
not just one. So two thousand four series Jefferson was
facing to the left, right, and the reverse of the
nickel was changed. On two thousand five, Jefferson's facing to
the right. The word liberty is uh engrave next to
him is based off of Jefferson's handwriting and two thousand

(23:20):
six he's facing forward and it's based off a portrait
that was done by Rembrett Peel. So uh this and
it also was the first coin in US circulation, actual
official US coin where it did not feature the person
on the coin depicted in profile. Right, So there you go.
That's your trivia, all right. There's no weird conspiracy thing

(23:44):
behind any of it. It's just, you know, just like
anything in the government, tends to have a pretty mundane
explanation at the end of it. But let's get on
to paper money. Yeah, while the while the Mint works
on the coins, we've got a lot of people working
on paper money, including the Federal Reserve Board, UM, the

(24:04):
Bureau of Engraving and Printing, and the U. S. Secret
Service are all working on the tech of paper money.
And uh, you know, paper money, you would figure has
a quite a bit of security risk involved, because I mean,
shouldn't you be able to throw a whole bunch of
dollar bills on a photo copying machine and have ability

(24:26):
to print as many copies as you want. Well, it
doesn't quite work that way, but paper money is a
lot easier to copy, I would assume than a coin
which you would actually have to mint, right. Um. Yeah,
on the face of it, it is much simpler to
make the copy. Uh, I can't make heads their tails
of it, right. So in order to make it more difficult,
you have to come up with various various schemes to

(24:50):
create a secure paper money currency. And so that in
the United States, they've used lots and lots of different techniques. Um.
For one, printed on special paper. Yes, that's one of
those things that you would say is very non technical,
but I would I would beg to differ because they're
the paper is a certain composition, it's got to have

(25:11):
certain types of red and blue threads that go through
it now, um, And it comes from from a supplier,
a particular supplier who's been doing it for a very
very long time. And it's got a little bit of
linen in it too. Yeah, it's made from cotton linen,
not wood. Yeah, so it's it's got it's got a
very particular feel. And if you pick up a counterfeit dollar,
there's a good chance that if it's not made on

(25:33):
the same sort of stuff, you would tell almost immediately like, well,
this is the wrong weight and texture for a dollar.
This this doesn't feel right. Um. So there's one thing.
You've got your your base material, which is a little, uh,
is a little different. You've then got the various dyes
of ink where it's in the old dollars it was
you know, like this greenish ink where that was kind

(25:56):
of hard to to replicate. It's even more difficult now
because now they use inks that are have sort of
a photoreactive almost a photoreactive kind of element to them,
and that if you tilt the dollar bill a certain way,
the color changes. Um. It's because the special inks that
they're using. Again, it's hard to replicate that. So it's

(26:17):
a it's an anti counterfeiting measure. Um. And I'm talking
specifically about the inks that are used to print like
the dollar amount, as opposed to the color of the
paper itself. The US government will tell you that basing
a decision on whether a bill is counterfeit or not
based solely upon the color of the bill is a

(26:38):
bad idea, Yes, because that can that can at least
be simulated somewhat easily. Um. But another very simple way,
really a very elegant way that the money is going
an anti counterfeit measure on it is that it uses
lots of really tiny writing, Yes, it does, microprinting, microprinting

(26:58):
and tiny line patterns throughout the bill, which are very
difficult to get a high resolution picture of, you know,
most especially early earlier in the days of printing money,
it was very hard to get a an accurate um
simulation of those. You pretty much would need to get
hold of the original plates um because those those it's

(27:22):
so tiny that it was very difficult to make a simulation. Yeah. Yeah, Well,
the the the circular lines around the portrait sort of
create this you know more effect where if you tried
to stick it on a photo copy or machine um
that it would give you a very blurry appearance. Because
I mean, that's the whole point of the microprinting and

(27:44):
the lines, is that if you try to use modern
technology like a simple way like that without trying to
make plates yourself, and you're just trying to to scan
a copy on your computer scanner or using a photocopier,
it's just it's gonna be so blurry that it's become
will become obvious to somebody you try to pass that
bill too, that it's not real, right, So let's talk

(28:05):
a little bit briefly, and then I think we'll finish
up with kind of some of the new designs that
are gonna be on the hundred dollar bill that shot
up in. Let's talk a little bit about what they're
actually doing to make this money. Um, they're using the
intaglio printing method. Intaglio, I listened to the g always

(28:26):
fools me. Yeah, Well maybe in Italy it's pronounced that way,
but darn it here in the South we're calling it
on taglio. Um. Anyway, the you have an engraver, just
like the coins, who creates a an original steel plate
and it's gonna have very very fine detail on it.
And then you have a You put the plates into

(28:49):
the printing press. You coat the plates with the correct ink.
You then wipe the excess inc off the plates so
that the only inc still on the plates is collected
in the little grooves. Yes, and then you run the
paper through the printing press and the press goes up
and down, pressing against the paper and very very rapidly,

(29:09):
and it actually creates little raised elements on the bill,
because that's what gets get pushed up into the grooves
and then coated with the ink. Right, it's fifteen thousand
pounds per square inch um. It is going to be
embossing that paper again. And this is another thing that

(29:30):
helps you detect if it's a counterfeit bill. You run
your finger across the bill and if you don't feel
that texture, that that difference, and I mean it's it's
a tiny, tiny difference in height, but we can feel that.
If it feels perfectly smooth, then you're thinking something's a
little hinky here. That's a technical term. That's right. And also,

(29:50):
not everything is printed on the bill when it runs
through that first um, that first printing run of and
and they have to print one side and then let
and then print the other side. You can't print both
at the same time. But like the Treasury Seal, the
Federal Reserve Seal, and the serial numbers are not printed
during this process. That's right, which makes sense because I mean,

(30:11):
you couldn't put the serial number on the smaster steel
plate because they would all have the same serial number,
thus negating the whole purpose of it in the first place. Yeah,
that's also another sign. If you have a bunch of
bills that all have the same serial number, Chances are
those might be hinky. So yeah, you have to run
them through printing at least three times, once for the front,

(30:33):
once for the back, and then again to the extra
stuff added um, and depending upon the complexity of the bill,
it may be another printing run. Because you're talking about
using different dyes. You're using the special photo of reflective
diyes that kind of stuff or dies that show up
when you put them under an ultraviolet light, that kind
of thing. So let's talk. I'm sorry, I was gonna

(30:55):
say that. The way they do the the ink, now
it's got metallic flakes in it appear because of the
light diffraction and changing the wavelength depending on the metallic
flakes position, it makes it appear green at some angles
and black at others, which is an effect very hard
to duplicate unless you have the exclusive inc used by

(31:16):
the Bureau of Engraving and Printing, Right. Yeah, kind of
hard to get your hands on. As it turns out,
it's kind of the whole idea behind it. So uh. Now,
in two thousand three, that's when the United States government
started to redesign currency, and the first bill was the
twenty dollar bill. To get the new redesign, and that's
when we started seeing some of these these elements, these

(31:39):
more advanced anti counterfeiting measures added in where you know,
that's where everyone's like, hey, this bill looks weird because
now there's this kind of peach coloration and the dye
doesn't look exactly the same. Well, that was all to
kind of help with the whole anti counterfeiting movement that
that new bill launched on October nine, two thousand and three,
and also had another secure d feature in it. What's

(32:01):
if I'm not mistaken, that was the first one to
have the ribbon yes, yes, where it has the security thread.
He has the security thread, which and again, if the
security threat is not in the bill, then that's the
science of counterfeit um. And I remember people doing that specifically,
uh snipping. It's like, look, it's got a security threat
and they snip, you know, just the end of the

(32:22):
bill and they pull it out to show that it
was intact and like, yeah, but now no, it's no
longer security threat. You're gonna have to spend that someplace
where people aren't paying attention, because people do pay attention.
That's the whole point. Yeah, the That's one of the
advantages of having paper currency is that if you want
to redesign your currency, you know, you don't have to
wait forever for the old currency to wear out. It's

(32:45):
going to do that on its own, just through use,
just being handled. So eventually the older bills, which you
know are still legal tender, will be so warned that
they'll just get cycled out of currency. And banks will
do it too. I mean, like you actually exchange the
old bills for new ones and you destroy the old ones. Yes,
and you can buy a bag of shredded money from

(33:05):
the government. Yeah, they'll be happy to sell it to
you for actual money. Yes. Um, yeah, I'm not confetti
for my party. Uh. And the new hundred dollar bill
is going to have some pretty cool stuff in it too.
It's got you know, you've got like the watermark, you've
got the special die, you have a three D ribbon
in there. Yeah. The new bill is going into circulation

(33:28):
in February of next year, which for us now at
the moment when you're recording it, it's and it's uh
eleven is when it comes out. We're recording just in
case not able to follow. Mr Pullet syn text. Yeah,
I'm not able to follow it. I'm trying to wean
myself from coffee. Um. So, yes, that has got a

(33:48):
brand new security threat which is a lot more obvious
than the old one, and you can you can learn
more about this at new money dot gov, but we
can go through some of the details. You can see
on it. It has some liberty bells and uh and
the hun read as the denomination of the bill on there,
and when you tilt it, they seem to move around.
They're using kind of this weird little holographic kind of

(34:09):
effect and you might be wondering how they do this,
so we Yeah, as it turns out, the they are
being fairly secret about a secretive about the whole process,
I guess mainly because they don't want people making them themselves.
But at any rate, it's really hard to find out
exactly the techniques they're using. Now we can, we could

(34:31):
make some guesses, but we are currently running up to
almost thirty five minutes in length on this show, so
I'm thinking that we're gonna have to not guess now.
But yeah. The other the other major news security feature
is the bell in the inkwell. And there's an inkwell
and bell liberty bell printed on it, and I think
it's a liberty bell looked like and um at one angle.

(34:53):
This is again a trick of light diffraction and one angle,
they both look copper. But if as you move the
bill and change the direction um, the bill appears to
change to a green color. And part of the reason
they have added these new particularly new security features is
to also help make these new bills UH detectable if
you're in a low light situation, which was not always

(35:15):
the case. It's it's not always easy, like in a
poorly lit restaurant, to figure out whether you have the
money without holding the bill up to the light, which
is not necessarily convenient. So it's hard to tell a
counterfeit bill when you're taking somebody's money at the at
the table right, or say at a toll booth where
it's the middle of the night and someone's going through
a toll booth and using a large bill and expecting

(35:37):
lots of change back. Yes, I'm not saying that that's
a place where people you try and pass off a
lot of counterfeit money. I'm just saying that's a place
where people try and pass off a lot of counterfeit money. Okay, Okay,
I had no idea. Uh well, you know you watch
enough movies or you have a relative who's in the
police force. Um, you find these things out. So we're
gonna wrap this up because we have gone on and

(35:58):
on and on about this. Like I said, I find
this this really fascinating, and with the hundred dollar bill
coming out, that's going to be the most technologically advanced
dollar that we've ever seen. Um. Also, just in case
you were wondering, the hundred dollar bill is the highest
denomination that they currently print now, although they have printed
higher denominations in the past and those are no longer

(36:18):
being introduced. Yeah, because we can do electronic transfers now
so that we don't need those higher denominations the way
we used to do. You know what the highest was,
I can't remember grand and I was gonna dan. Do
you know who was on it? Um? No, Woodrow Wilson
share some services. You know. I looked that up a

(36:40):
long time ago, probably like a year, year and a
half ago, and it was just fascinating, but I didn't
look it up again for the podcast. So yeah, you
guys who played bar trivia, if you're ever asked what
was the highest denomination bill ever printed in the United States.
It was one hundred thousand dollars and Woodrow Wilson was
on it. Although somebody didn't try to pass a one
million dollar bill at a Walmart and I had this
fucking dude, no real, Okay, next time I'm going to

(37:03):
target al Right, guys, Well, this wraps up this discussion.
I hope you enjoyed it. If you have any questions
or you have a suggestion for a future podcast, you
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(37:23):
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(37:48):
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