The C-Note Gets a Facelift

New security thread aims to protect bill most targeted by foreign counterfeiters
By Polly Davis Doig,  Newser Staff
Posted Aug 26, 2007 3:51 PM CDT
The C-Note Gets a Facelift
With a $100 bill on display, a money trader counts currency notes at a money exchange counter in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia in this Nov. 22, 2004 file photo. After six decades in which the venerable greenback never changed its look, the U.S. currency has undergone a slew of make-overs. The most amazing...   (Associated Press)

Even Ben Franklin has a little work done every now and then. The $100 bill, which bears the founding father's image, is undergoing a state-of-the-art redesign aimed at thwarting counterfeiters who target the C-note more than any other denomination, the AP reports. The new security thread utilizes microprinting and 650,000 tiny lenses per bill that magnify the image.

Moving the bill side to side will make the image appear to move up and down, and vice versa. "You will know that it is authentic if you do this and the note does that," says the director of the Bureau of Engraving and Printing. The $5 bill is also being redesigned, because counterfeiters were found to be bleaching them and using what remained to make fake C-notes. (More counterfeit stories.)

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