The United States Treasury is unveiling a brand new $100 dollar bill today that officials say will help stay ahead of counterfeiters.
Speaking at the debut ceremony for the new bill, Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke said it’s a challenge to prevent counterfeiting as technology has evolved and more and more money continues to flow overseas.
UPDATE: There has been a huge glitch in the printing of these new bills.
The task has become “more complex in recent years as technology advances and U.S. dollar flows expand and increase,” Bernanke said. He says that up to two-thirds of all $100 bills circulate outside the continental U.S.
The U.S. Treasury has incorporated two highly advanced, simple security features which offer an easy way to verify that a bill is real:
- 3-D Security Ribbon: This is a blue ribbon on the front of the new $100 dollar bill consisting of images of bells and 100s. If you move the bill back and forth while focusing on the blue ribbon, you’ll see that the bells change to tiny 100s as they move. If, on the other hand, you tilt the note, the bells and 100s will move from side to side. If you tilt it side to side, they move up and down. The ribbon is actually woven into the paper itself, as opposed to just being printed on it.
- Bell in the Inkwell: There is a new color-shifting bell, inside a copper inkwell, located on the front of the new $100 dollar bill. The inkwell and bell are both copper until you move the bill. When you tilt it, the bell will change from copper to green, which actually seems to make the bell disappear.
The new $100 dollar bill will enter circulation on February 10, 2011.
You can learn even more about the new bill at http://www.newmoney.gov.
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