Tomorrow is the date that the Fed will start issuing the newest print of the $20 bill. I’ve always been one that’s into money – for some reason I’ve always gotten excited when a new series of bill came out, even though the date and perhaps the Secretary signatures were the only things changed. So when they started introducing all these security features in the last few designs of the bills, I’ve been really into it. Now we finally get some colour in the bills. It’s not quite as extreme as other countries’ bills, but it’s not the boring old green we’ve always had. There’s a bunch of info on the new bill over at the BEG’s official website here.

But I had a thought about the new bills yesterday that really puzzles me. The stated aim of the government with these redesigned bills is to make ’em harder to counterfit and pass as forgeries. That’s fine – I applaud the effort to make the money more secure. But that’s not my problem. The problem is this. We are not invalidating the old bills, so all the old $20 designs (of which there will be two old ones now, the current soon to be expired, and the older one (see pics). What’s to stop counterfiters from printing up tons of the old bills and passing them?

Since the older bills are not being removed, they’re still legal tender. Counterfitters should just print up a bunch of old bills and use them. I’m sure in the high traffic things that the government is looking at, it’s likely to draw suspicion if someone has like $200,000 of old $20 bills they’re trying to pass, so from that standpoint, it probably isn’t worth it to counterfit old bills. But I still maintain that if the stated reason is to secure the system, make the old ones invalid. I just think if you’re gonna introduce new bills, you shoud invalidate the old ones – and I realize what kind of work something like that would take. Or at the least, recall all the old ones. Don’t totally invalidate them, but put out a recall on them.Not to mention th

e fact that there is going to be three versions of the $20 running around now, and folks who don’t keep up with things and don’t have access to the knowledge that folks on the net, or even folks who keep up with current events have might not think the newest bill is real. “Color – what’s that? It’s gotta be fake.”

The other thing I am really into is “Where’s George“. It’s a site that lets you enter the tracking numbers of the paper money, and then if someone re-enters that bill into the system, you can see where it’s gone. It’s a pretty cool little free hobby for computer geeks. Check it out. Here’s a few sample bill reports, so you can see what I’m talking about.

A $1 Bill of Mine
Another $1 of Mine
Not mine, but the bill with the most hits in Where’s George.