UPDATE 1-New US $100 note aims to deter counterfeiters(N. Korea react: dumping supernote inventory)

Reuters ^ | 04/21/10 | David Lawder

[TigerLikesRooster]

UPDATE 1-New US $100 note aims to deter counterfeiters

Wed Apr 21, 2010 2:39pm EDT

By David Lawder

WASHINGTON, April 21 (Reuters) - A newly designed $100 note aims to thwart counterfeiters with advanced security features, top U.S. Treasury and Federal Reserve officials said on Wednesday.

The "new Benjamins" to be released in February 2011 retain the traditional look of the U.S. currency, with Benjamin Franklin's portrait. They aim to foil counterfeiters with difficult and costly to reproduce features such as a blue three-dimensional security ribbon with alternating images of bells and the number 100 that move and change as the viewing angle is tilted.

The new notes, which cost slightly more to produce, also feature a bell image inside a picture of an inkwell that changes from copper to green when tilted, as well as a large "100" that does the same.

"As with previous U.S. currency redesigns, this note incorporates the best technology available to ensure we're staying ahead of counterfeiters," U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said at a Treasury Department unveiling ceremony. "Welcome to the new Benjamins."

The $100 note is the most often counterfeited denomination of U.S. currency outside the United States due to its broad circulation overseas. It is the highest-denominated note issued by the Federal Reserve.

The approximately 6.5 billion older design $100s already in circulation will remain legal tender after the new notes are released next year.

[TigerLikesRooster]

Here is a Korean-language article from Radio Free Asia which reports that:

(1) N. Korea is flooding NK-China border region of China with supernotes.

(2) They are doing it to get rid of their supernote inventory before the newly designed 100 dollar bills make them useless.

(3) Due to oversupply of fake dollar bills in the area, dollar value has plummeted locally: anywhere from a fifth to a half of previous value.

(4) Serial numbers of the supernotes from N. Korea tend to start with letter 'P' or 'F.'

[TigerLikesRooster]

P!

[Jet Jaguar]

BTTT

[TigerLikesRooster]

Competition between real toilet paper(new Benjamins) and fake toilet paper(NK’s supernote Benjamins) are heating up.

[fieldmarshaldj]

[caww]

Rotflol....isn’t that the truth!

[null and void]

[mlocher]

Will the new 100 keep its value any longer?

[TigerLikesRooster]

I suppose that the cost of embedding anti-countefeiting features won't be cheap. Its printing cost could soon outweigh its nominal value, if Obama ‘keeps doing his job.’

[null and void]

I have some Hong Kong 10¢ notes. they are undersized and only printed on one side...

[rmlew]

The Fed must really hate the North Koreans impersonating them

[Ken H]

(2) They are doing it to get rid of their supernote inventory before the newly designed 100 dollar bills make them useless.

That doesn't seem right. The old $100 bills will still be good, so I'd think the supernotes would remain just as good.

[Doug Loss]

Is it just me, or is this about the most horrifyingly ugly banknote in memory?

[TigerLikesRooster]

They usually retire old bills by attrition but I suppose they will implement a way to speed it up.

[Rodamala]

[Pontiac]

The "new Benjamins" to be released in February 2011 retain the traditional look of the U.S. currency, with Benjamin Franklin's portrait.

I hope that they have a new $1000 note on the drawing board. We are going to need it soon with Obamaflation on the near horizon.

[Solitar]

Or they could issue a 40 grain (1/12th oz) $100 gold coin.

[scott7278]

When you view the video at the following link...

http://www.newmoney.gov/newmoney/Splashpage.aspx

...you find that it quotes a portion of the Declaration of Independence:

“When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.”

Hmmmmmmmm....

[AmericanInTokyo]

I have seen one of those Super Notes......pretty sophisticated actually.

[TigerLikesRooster]

I wonder if NK front organizations would make political donation to Obama(or ACORN) in supernotes.