Why must money look like … money?

Kiplinger's Personal Finance Magazine, Feb, 1998 by Kevin McCormally

The feds are sprucing up our currency and the results are, well, nice try. A few of our favorite illustrators suggest something a little livelier.

Attention, class, here's today's assignment: redesign the almighty dollar, the world's premier symbol of financial stability. There's more than $400 billion in American currency in circulation around the globe --most of it outside the 50 states -- and your job is to give it a new look, the first face lift in almost 70 years.

If you carry wads of big bills, your wallet undoubtedly holds evidence that the government is in the midst of just such a redesign. The new $100 bill was introduced in 1996 and the new $50 made its debut last October. The makeovers will make their way down to the common man and woman later this year, when the new $20 bill makes its debut. But don't expect the coming-out party to elicit oohs and aahs for an garde design.

Hos and hums are more likely

Each new bill will be the same size, shape and color as the one it replaces. The look of the new $10 -- a larger portrait, slightly off center-is the look of the new $50 and will be the look of the new $20 and the new $10, $5, $2 and $1, as the bills get their makeovers at a pace of about one per year. U.S. Treasurer Mary Ellen Withrow is fond of saying that each new arrival will look like a member of the family.

The point isn't art, of course, but security: The redesign incorporates high-tech measures to foil counterfeiters and their ever-more-sophisticated equipment. Thus the new $100 and $50 bills have a special polymer thread that is embedded in the bank-note paper. The thread glows (red with the $100 and yellow with the $50 ... or is it the other way around?) when the bill is viewed under ultraviolet light.

But imagine if our government money-makers had let their imaginations run wild. We asked artists Barry Blitt, Bill Mayer and John Craig to do just that. Turn the page to see the intriguing results but, please, don't try to spend their bills).

CHANGES TO YOUR CHANGE

Compared with the official paper currency, you can expect more creativity to go into the new quarters that will be minted starting early next year. Between 1999 and 2008, five new quarters will be issued each year to celebrate the 50 states in the order they were admitted to the union. Delaware will be first, Hawaii last. Each state will get to design the "tails" side of the coin that will be issued in its honor. The portrait of George Washington that appears on the current quarter will remain on the "heads" side of the coins.

Besides appearing to state pride, the commemorative quarters are expected to make big bucks. Rep. Michael Castle (R.-Del.), who introduced the bill that authorizes the program, expects it to be worth at least $1.1 billion over ten years. Profits will come from the sale of uncirculated and proof sets to collectors and from the fact that the federal government will "sell" the coins to the Federal Reserve Banks at face value -- far more than the four and a half cents it costs to mint a quarter. The more citizens hoard the special quarters, the more the government will have to produce-and the more profit it will make.

States will probably run contests for designs and slogans, and citizens may be asked to vote for their favorite. We bet artist Tim O'Brien's concepts on page 121 are much closer to what you'll actually see than the following slogans entered in an irreverent Washington Post contest a few months back: Maine: Can,t rightly say we approve of these newfangled quarters. Missouri: This is the back of the quarter Nevada: If there were an Area 51, it might be here. Vermont. We're the one on the left. No, wait. Yeah, the left. try, notes Ro