Thanks Yvo for this one, The last time Andrew Jackson got a makeover, he ended up with a big head, slightly off-center. This time, he will get a little color. The most noticeable features of the last redesign of U.S. currency — the oversized, off-center portraits — produced all kinds of derisive nicknames: funny money, Monopoly money, cartoon money.
Color is coming, and government money makers are hoping for a warmer reception for the changes. The new $20, with its public unveiling set for the spring, is supposed to be in circulation as early as next fall.
Jackson is first in line for a makeover. After the new $20 makes its debut, the new $50 (Ulysses S. Grant) and the $100s (Benjamin Franklin) will follow in within 18 months.
In the works is a five-year effort, costing up to $53 million, to educate people about the changes. An important goal is to help distinguish between genuine greenbacks and bogus bills.
"If we learned anything from the issuance of the $20 in 1998, it is that things that we get used to here, because we see it and work on it, when it is first in the hands of the public it is seen as dramatic," said Thomas Ferguson, director of the Bureau of Engraving and Printing. "Suddenly, we are asking them to accept something else."
News source: MSNBC News
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