Speaker 1: Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera.
Speaker 1: It's ready. Are you get in touch with technology with
Speaker 1: tech Stuff from how stuff works dot Com. Hello again, everyone,
Speaker 1: and welcome to tech stuff. My name is Chris Polette,
Speaker 1: and I am an editor here at how stuff works
Speaker 1: dot Com, sitting across from me as usual as senior
Speaker 1: writer Jonathan Strickland. Greed is good. Okay, then that's a
Speaker 1: Wall Street reference, the sequel of which will be coming
Speaker 1: out in theater soon. Wow. Really, yeah, there's a single
Speaker 1: to Wall Street. Yeah. Yeah, it's got Shia La Booth
Speaker 1: in it. Anyway, So that the reason I said greed
Speaker 1: is good is because we're going to talk about currency. Yes,
Speaker 1: we are the tech of making money. Yes, what it
Speaker 1: requires to get that cash in your hot little hands.
Speaker 1: But before we get into that, I thought talk a
Speaker 1: little bit about the history of currency. This is kind
Speaker 1: of a stuff you missed in History class mini section.
Speaker 1: What we should do is get Liz to play the
Speaker 1: first few notes of the stuff you missed in History
Speaker 1: class theme. So we'll wait. Hi, this is Jonathan, not
Speaker 1: Katie or Sarah. I am not nearly as as articulate
Speaker 1: or pretty as either of them, and I have far
Speaker 1: less hair on my head. So we want to talk
Speaker 1: about the history of currency. So the first coins. Okay,
Speaker 1: back back before there were coins, you know, essentially everything
Speaker 1: was based upon bartering, right, and then there was salt. Yeah,
Speaker 1: well again that's also a kind of currency. But but
Speaker 1: before coins, yeah, there were some things that would represent
Speaker 1: wealth and could be used in the currency. Cocoa beans
Speaker 1: also were used as currency at one point to help
Speaker 1: balance out trade systems. But really, you know, you got
Speaker 1: to this point where it just became really difficult to
Speaker 1: trade stuff for other stuff, right, So that's when people
Speaker 1: started coming up with this idea of currency. It's something
Speaker 1: that represents the purchasing power so that you can get
Speaker 1: hold of something else. That person can then use that
Speaker 1: same currency to go and purchase stuff that they need.
Speaker 1: Brilliant system because it's way more portable than carrying a
Speaker 1: cow and three chickens with you whenever you want to
Speaker 1: go and buy some wheat and I'll ferguson you're not, yeah,
Speaker 1: fight me. So anyway, let's let's go back to Lydia. Lydia,
Speaker 1: that Encyclopedia Lydia, which was it's a an empire that
Speaker 1: was well, where modern day Turkey is now, there was
Speaker 1: a Lydian king who decided to start making coins. Do
Speaker 1: you know this guy's name? Yes, you do, you just
Speaker 1: don't know who it is. It's Creases, Oh yes, Cress. Yes,
Speaker 1: to be rich as Creases. Well, the reason we say
Speaker 1: rich as Creases is because Crisis is the guy who
Speaker 1: came up with this idea of stamping coins with a
Speaker 1: imperial emblem on them. They weren't known as Cress pieces,
Speaker 1: were they. Oh you know what, folks, if you could
Speaker 1: have seen his face leading up to that, I could
Speaker 1: tell that he had something and I almost wish I
Speaker 1: had not paused for breath. Uh So, yeah, Crisis came
Speaker 1: up with this idea of of stamping metal ingots to
Speaker 1: create coins. This is around six b C. So that's
Speaker 1: kind of where the idea came from. Now the idea
Speaker 1: for a currency as in paper notes that came later later,
Speaker 1: Um yeah, because I mean, who the heck trust paper? Right? Chinese?
Speaker 1: Did the Chinese came up with the idea for paper
Speaker 1: notes well before anyone else. Did you bring up a
Speaker 1: good point? Please? Trust? Trust is very important. Yes, it's
Speaker 1: all about trust. Currency is based upon trust uh. In
Speaker 1: the United States until ninety one. That trust is that
Speaker 1: the piece of paper or the coin that you held
Speaker 1: represented a certain amount of gold, right, and that in theory,
Speaker 1: you could go to the US government and exchange your
Speaker 1: currency for the equivalent value of equivalent amount of gold
Speaker 1: that would be the same as the value of the
Speaker 1: currency you were handing over. Right, So you're you're giving
Speaker 1: them a piece of paper with Benjamin Franklin's picture on it,
Speaker 1: and we're going to give you gold in return, dollars
Speaker 1: worth of gold exactly, since it's a Franklin, because it's
Speaker 1: all about the Benjamin's baby. But in ninety one, the
Speaker 1: US decided to abandon the gold standard. It really wasn't practical,
Speaker 1: I mean there was. They reached a point where if
Speaker 1: everyone turned in their currency, there would not be enough
Speaker 1: gold to support that. They just there's none of gold
Speaker 1: in the reserves to support the currency. So now um
Speaker 1: currency is kind of the trust is based upon a
Speaker 1: group hallucination that the money is actually worth something much better. Now,
Speaker 1: speaking to our producer Tyler, and we came to the
Speaker 1: conclusion that our our trust in the system of money
Speaker 1: is equivalent to Wiley coyote running off the edge of
Speaker 1: the cliff before he's noticed that there's nothing under him.
Speaker 1: You know, he never studied law, right, So if we
Speaker 1: ever notice that money is not really based on anything,
Speaker 1: they'll be panic and we'll all not be able to
Speaker 1: buy anything. So just let's continue the group hallucination, please,
Speaker 1: because I got bills to pay, y'all. And uh, but so,
Speaker 1: really money is just representing buying power, how much buying
Speaker 1: power you have? And we want to talk about the
Speaker 1: tech of making money, and before we get into the
Speaker 1: actual tech of it, one other thing I wanted to
Speaker 1: point out is that you can't solve money problems just
Speaker 1: by printing more currency. Nope, that's not how it works.
Speaker 1: It can just doing that. First of all, you have
Speaker 1: to find a way of getting currency into circulation, So
Speaker 1: you can't you can't just print money. I mean, what
Speaker 1: are you gonna do Give it out to people for free.
Speaker 1: That doesn't work either, because that causes inflation because now
Speaker 1: money has been devalued, it's not worth what it what
Speaker 1: used to be worth, and so now you have to
Speaker 1: have more money to buy the same things that you
Speaker 1: needed before. Um, the way that wealth is generated, the
Speaker 1: way money is actually created is through loans. This is
Speaker 1: getting really technical, but when you take out a loan,
Speaker 1: you're charged interest, which means ultimately you're paying back more
Speaker 1: money than what you got in the first place. Yes,
Speaker 1: that's what's generating the money that that is coming out
Speaker 1: of the you know what. We you can print as
Speaker 1: much money as you want to get into circulation, you
Speaker 1: have to have the loan system there. Yeah, also was
Speaker 1: not very big in the Bible. But uh, at any rate,
Speaker 1: let's get into the tech of making money, and we
Speaker 1: want I wanted to start with coins. Yeah, some of
Speaker 1: the some of the tech that they used to make
Speaker 1: money is actually very very old. Yeah, some of it.
Speaker 1: Some of it has been around for centuries and it
Speaker 1: requires a level of artistry that is phenomenal. No, I know.
Speaker 1: And and this is one of those things that any
Speaker 1: time it comes on one of our the channels that
Speaker 1: make up our parent company, one of the Discovery channels,
Speaker 1: and there's I've seen a couple of specials on how
Speaker 1: they how they make money and how they make the
Speaker 1: stuff behind money as in the paper and all the
Speaker 1: the things that become money. Just fascinating the metal stuff. Yeah,
Speaker 1: if we're going with coins, we're gonna stick mainly to
Speaker 1: the United States, I think, mostly because I mean that's
Speaker 1: where we live, so it's the information that's easiest for
Speaker 1: us to access. But really most of these processes are
Speaker 1: similar throughout the world. They may not be using exactly
Speaker 1: the same kinds of machines, but they're using a very
Speaker 1: similar process. So to to make a coin, uh, it's
Speaker 1: a fairly complex process. The first thing you're gonna need, um, well,
Speaker 1: there's two two main things you're gonna need. You're gonna
Speaker 1: need a die actually a pair of die um, not
Speaker 1: like dice like excited. It's not that gonna die. It's
Speaker 1: gonna say, come on, big seven, kind of like a stamp. Yes, okay,
Speaker 1: you're gonna need a really really high quality stamp, and
Speaker 1: you're gonna need metal. Uh So with designing the stamp,
Speaker 1: I guess we can start with that because that's really
Speaker 1: the basis of all the coins that we create. There's
Speaker 1: a lot of newer tech involved in creating the stamp
Speaker 1: these days because uh in in uh in earlier times
Speaker 1: you would have to have the designer actually do this
Speaker 1: by by hand, make the design by hand first, and
Speaker 1: computers can be used to do that. Although not always yeah, uh,
Speaker 1: in general, if you're doing it the old way, let's
Speaker 1: say you get in the old way being not that old,
Speaker 1: just so you know, because I mean the old old
Speaker 1: way is that you would develop a stamp and you
Speaker 1: would use a hammer and hand volt to create these things.
Speaker 1: But that's getting a little too old. The modern era
Speaker 1: of making currency, you have an engraver who designs the
Speaker 1: coin two very specific standards, you know. So this is
Speaker 1: the engraver has to design the coin, and the design
Speaker 1: has to be approved before anything else can happen. Uh.
Speaker 1: And then, assuming that you're using the old method where
Speaker 1: you're you're not digitally modeling stuff, the engraver would use
Speaker 1: clay or some other modeling material to build the first
Speaker 1: model of the coin, which is going to be much
Speaker 1: larger than the the eventual actual coin will be from
Speaker 1: that mold from that model. Rather, you create a mold
Speaker 1: using something like plastoline, and then you pour plaster of
Speaker 1: Paris into that. And this is a well plaster. The
Speaker 1: reason we use plaster of Paris is because they can
Speaker 1: pick up details, really fine details and represent them accurately.
Speaker 1: So now you've got a plaster model of the coin
Speaker 1: um and then from that you have a machine that
Speaker 1: creates a copper mole of it called a galvano. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I didn't have that, uh. And then you make an
Speaker 1: even smaller model of it. It's called a hub, and
Speaker 1: this is made out of steel. And then you the
Speaker 1: master hub is called the dye. Uh, so that you
Speaker 1: have a steel dye that looks exactly the way your
Speaker 1: coin is gonna look, but kind of in reverse because
Speaker 1: it's a stamp. And you have to have two of those,
Speaker 1: because you have to have one for the front and
Speaker 1: one for the back. And and so that's that's how
Speaker 1: you create your your stamp. There's actually even more involved
Speaker 1: in that. I mean, there's this whole polishing section that
Speaker 1: has to has to go through. By the time that
Speaker 1: the steel die is ready to be used, it has
Speaker 1: a mirror like finish because it's been polished so finely.
Speaker 1: M all right, So that's your stamping stuff. Now you're
Speaker 1: gonna have something to stamp right now. In in the
Speaker 1: United States, it's a mixture of copper and nickel mainly,
Speaker 1: although you also have zinc plated upper you have um
Speaker 1: or or copper plated zinc rather or not the other
Speaker 1: way around. But why would you have zinc plated copper.
Speaker 1: That would be unusual. And we haven't always used the
Speaker 1: exact same medals throughout or end alloys. Throughout the history
Speaker 1: of currency. You can find some interesting, uh facts about
Speaker 1: the various medals they've been used. And in most cases
Speaker 1: it tends to be something like war broke out and
Speaker 1: suddenly we didn't have access to all the medals that
Speaker 1: we used to use for coins. As a matter of fact, Um,
Speaker 1: my father, who was in World War two, UM has
Speaker 1: a box of steel pennies because during World War Two
Speaker 1: they used steel to make pennies instead of copper for
Speaker 1: reasons of the war effort. And uh so I have
Speaker 1: a whole bunch of those and they're worth you know,
Speaker 1: about a penny nice well to the government. They are
Speaker 1: they are worth exactly what they're worth. So, um, you
Speaker 1: could have a collectible coin, who would which would be
Speaker 1: worth a lot of money to a collector can take
Speaker 1: it to the government. It's worth exactly, you know. It's
Speaker 1: just like it's a stamps are right, stamps are worth
Speaker 1: you know, if you put a very very rare you say,
Speaker 1: you put an inverted jenny an envelope, it's worth exactly
Speaker 1: to the post office. You know, postage. You'd still have
Speaker 1: to add postage to it. You might be able to
Speaker 1: sell it to a collector for thousands of dollars, but
Speaker 1: the government's gonna take it at face value. Yes, exactly.
Speaker 1: And that's again that goes back to our trusting anyway.
Speaker 1: Um so yeah, alright, so steel pennies. Yeah, so let's
Speaker 1: talk about the metal. You get these, You get melt
Speaker 1: big bars of metal, You melt them down in a furnace,
Speaker 1: You pour them into uh inget forms, and then you
Speaker 1: can get and you cool that down, use water by
Speaker 1: the way to cool it. Uh and then it actually
Speaker 1: uses a couple of different cooling systems. And then you
Speaker 1: take that to a rolling mill which is gonna turn
Speaker 1: it into flat sheets. Okay, now, um, the US meant
Speaker 1: pretty much gets these these flat sheets and coils. Yes,
Speaker 1: they feed the coil. Coils are let's see, I've actually
Speaker 1: got the stats here. A foot wide, feet long, abound
Speaker 1: as thick as the final coin tends to be, and
Speaker 1: it weighs about six thousand pounds. Yes, yes, actually there
Speaker 1: there are some great photos of this, along with a
Speaker 1: lot more detail than we'll probably get into in the
Speaker 1: podcast at us MINT dot gov. Yes, some details and
Speaker 1: the photos or you know, because you can see these
Speaker 1: huge coils of metal, which are pretty awesome. It's pretty
Speaker 1: intimidating really because you think, wow, that's that's a lot
Speaker 1: of metal. Um. Now, these strips, these coils get fed
Speaker 1: through a machine called a blanking press or the blanking presser. Essentially,
Speaker 1: what that does is it cuts the metal sheets into
Speaker 1: the coin shape. Um. Yes, actually cuts them into slightly
Speaker 1: the slightly larger diameter than the way the coin will
Speaker 1: eventually appear, because it has to create a little extra
Speaker 1: metal on the edges to create a HM. So you
Speaker 1: put it through the blanker, the blanking pressor get and
Speaker 1: you get the blanks. That's what the unmarked flat discs
Speaker 1: of metal are called. You get the blanks. You then
Speaker 1: have to soften them, yes, which you do by putting
Speaker 1: them into a furnace. You the furnaces about seven degrees
Speaker 1: celsius or so this softens them a little bit. Then
Speaker 1: you have to cool them and clean them. Uh. And
Speaker 1: it's it's it's a process that actually uses various chemicals
Speaker 1: to clean them. You're not just you know, putting them
Speaker 1: through a washing machine. Although it's in a machine that
Speaker 1: does look like washing machine. It does spin them. Um. Yeah,
Speaker 1: although that's not necessarily true for for everything, because the
Speaker 1: golden dollars slightly different process in which they use steel
Speaker 1: shot to the kind of like bees. Yeah, a little
Speaker 1: bit like bebes. You put it in there in that way.
Speaker 1: It polishes them through brute force. Yeah. So yeah, the
Speaker 1: the spinny thing. Did you happen to see what that's
Speaker 1: called spinning? Well, did you see what it's called? Um,
Speaker 1: it's the whirl away. So sp thing is not that
Speaker 1: big a leap from the technical term of the world away.
Speaker 1: That's true. Actually, it sounds like something you did to
Speaker 1: see at the local carnival at your shopping mall. It
Speaker 1: sets up and you're going, I'm not sure I want
Speaker 1: to find that thing. Yeah, and and yeah exactly. We'll
Speaker 1: polish away your impurities and will also take your money.
Speaker 1: So you then, uh, once once you've cleaned and dried
Speaker 1: the coins. Um, they moved to a thing called the
Speaker 1: upsetting mill. Yes, it's very upsetting. I was going to say,
Speaker 1: I'm sure they feel terrible after that. Right, So this
Speaker 1: is the thing that creates the rim around the edge
Speaker 1: of the coin and Uh. So once the upsetting mill
Speaker 1: is done, the coins should be the right diameter. It
Speaker 1: should be the same size that's going to be once
Speaker 1: it's stamped. Um and uh. And it's done for a
Speaker 1: very important reason. It helps and you know, by raising
Speaker 1: the rim it helps them stack the coins a little
Speaker 1: bit better. You'll notice it the you know, it's got
Speaker 1: sort of a firm edge around. It also helps keep
Speaker 1: the coins from a routing. And that's because that's one
Speaker 1: of the benefits of using coins. One of the reasons
Speaker 1: the United States government is pushing the golden dollars so
Speaker 1: much is they last a whole lot longer than paper money. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you don't have to keep making as much. Yes you can.
Speaker 1: You know, you can make it as as circulation requires.
Speaker 1: But um, you don't have to worry about you know,
Speaker 1: the useful life of a dollar might be a decade,
Speaker 1: but the useful life of a coin is could be
Speaker 1: really a long time. Actually, I don't think paper money.
Speaker 1: I just I just used that as I just pulled
Speaker 1: that out of nowhere that somebody would write in and say,
Speaker 1: now someone has the podcast already and they have written
Speaker 1: in and to you, sir or madam, I would like
Speaker 1: to say, please listen to the show all the way
Speaker 1: through before you write us, because sometimes we correct ourselves.
Speaker 1: Not often, I will grant you, but sometimes so. At
Speaker 1: any rate, the next stage is where they might have
Speaker 1: to to um, well, I guess the coining is the
Speaker 1: next stage to bring on whether or not you need
Speaker 1: to put ridges on the edge. The reads, the reads, Yes, yes, reading,
Speaker 1: reading is fundamentals, especially if you need to. But yes,
Speaker 1: it's R E, D, I N G. Right, and then
Speaker 1: it would be coining. So I'm glad that you brought
Speaker 1: that up because I almost totally forgot. And this is
Speaker 1: where we add the actual design of the coin to
Speaker 1: the blank which now, by the way, it's no longer
Speaker 1: called a blank. Yes, once you've added the rim, it's
Speaker 1: become a new thing called the plan chet. Yes, no
Speaker 1: relation to Kate. Yeah, thanks plan chet as in poppies
Speaker 1: and um will make you sleep. Yes. So once you
Speaker 1: get to the coining, this is where those die that
Speaker 1: we talked about the come in and you've got They
Speaker 1: usually refer to the die in two different terms, very simple.
Speaker 1: You got the the anvil and the hammer. The anvil
Speaker 1: is going to remain stationary. The hammer is going to
Speaker 1: strike the coin which is resting on the anvil, and
Speaker 1: the force of the impact is going to stamp that
Speaker 1: design on the planet and make it a coin. And
Speaker 1: uh yeah, it resembles a hammer and an anvil and
Speaker 1: function more so than form, because I mean, you wouldn't
Speaker 1: recognize it as a hammer and an anvil in the
Speaker 1: you know, looney tune sense of something dropping on your head.
Speaker 1: Although I wouldn't want either one of those to drop
Speaker 1: on my head. I also would not want those to
Speaker 1: drop on your head. But um yeah, after after they
Speaker 1: become coins, of course they are. They go to a
Speaker 1: bin where they are inspected. Somebody takes a look at them,
Speaker 1: make sure it makes sure that they are okay, and
Speaker 1: I mean anything that that's not acceptable goes back for recycling,
Speaker 1: as is the webbing for when they wake from when
Speaker 1: they make the blanks. The metal that goes that that
Speaker 1: they can't use, it's around it that gets recycled as well. Right,
Speaker 1: All the webbing is the excess metal after the stamping process,
Speaker 1: because of course, if you stamp a bunch of circular
Speaker 1: things out of a sheet of metal, you're gonna be
Speaker 1: left with excess pieces. Yeah, and quite a bit of
Speaker 1: metal so that all gets melted down and recycled, as
Speaker 1: do any irregular coins. Um. They actually the the first
Speaker 1: irregular coins. Before you melt them down, they have to
Speaker 1: be destroyed or they have to be uh marred, so
Speaker 1: that it's clear that they are not valid currency. To
Speaker 1: do so, they put them in special machines called wafflers.
Speaker 1: I love the technology jargon of making currency wafflers. Man,
Speaker 1: it sounds like a county fair. I know, it's a
Speaker 1: county fair where all the prize is our money. Sign
Speaker 1: me up. Um so yeah, these uh, these actually use
Speaker 1: high pressure rollers to kind of put a predetermined pattern,
Speaker 1: a ridged pattern across the coin that automatically marks them
Speaker 1: as being not viable. And then they get sent to
Speaker 1: the recycling furnace and then uh, the the coins that
Speaker 1: are actually acceptable they fall into a box called a trap.
Speaker 1: Now this part I don't like. I don't want to
Speaker 1: fall into a trap at my world Away waffler fair.
Speaker 1: I'm just waiting for you to do it, to fall
Speaker 1: into a trap. Back, bar intoe, it's a trap. Nothing
Speaker 1: could penetrate the shields. Um. That was terrible. That was
Speaker 1: like the world's worst admiral. Acbar accent. Please don't write me.
Speaker 1: Remember what I said about pausing the podcast. Um, I
Speaker 1: have a quick thing of trivia before we move on
Speaker 1: to currency, to paper paper money. Do you know why,
Speaker 1: out of all the coins in that erin United States circulation,
Speaker 1: why the penny and nicol are the only ones to
Speaker 1: have images that don't face to the left. No, why, Chucks,
Speaker 1: I was gonna hoping you knew that's gonna make this weird. No, okay, Um,
Speaker 1: So there are a lot of different theories, you know.
Speaker 1: So the penny, of course has a Lincoln there, and
Speaker 1: the nicol has a Jefferson. Yes, Um, has nothing to
Speaker 1: do with who they are beyond a very simple point.
Speaker 1: So Abraham Lincoln penny was meanted back in and it
Speaker 1: was to commemorate the hundred year anniversary of Lincoln's birth
Speaker 1: UH and Theodore Roosevelt, who was president at the time,
Speaker 1: chose a sculptor named Victor David Brenner to design the penny. Now,
Speaker 1: Brenner had created a bust of a plaque really not
Speaker 1: a bust, but a plaque of of Lincoln that had
Speaker 1: him facing to the UH, to the right. It was
Speaker 1: based off a photo of Lincoln where Lincoln was facing
Speaker 1: to the right. That's the reason why the penny Lincoln
Speaker 1: faces to the right. It's not there's no conspiracy or
Speaker 1: weird philosophical thing about it. It's because the photo that
Speaker 1: was used to create a plaque that was in turn
Speaker 1: used to create the portrait in the penny, Lincoln was
Speaker 1: facing to the right. All right, Now, Jefferson is a
Speaker 1: little weird. He started facing out on the left. Ba
Speaker 1: uh two thousand three, decided to look around, he did, No,
Speaker 1: he didn't. He was in no position at that point.
Speaker 1: But the President had enacted a law to revise the nickel.
Speaker 1: And this was to commemorate the by centennary, by centenary
Speaker 1: of Lewis and Clark. Oh, which makes part perfect sense, right,
Speaker 1: If you're gonna celebrate Lewis and Clark, why not changed
Speaker 1: the nickel. Oh you know, he was the guy who
Speaker 1: sent them out there. Yeah. Yeah, So the US meant
Speaker 1: decided to make a series of nickels. Yes, so it's
Speaker 1: not just one. So two thousand four series Jefferson was
Speaker 1: facing to the left, right, and the reverse of the
Speaker 1: nickel was changed. On two thousand five, Jefferson's facing to
Speaker 1: the right. The word liberty is uh engrave next to
Speaker 1: him is based off of Jefferson's handwriting and two thousand
Speaker 1: six he's facing forward and it's based off a portrait
Speaker 1: that was done by Rembrett Peel. So uh this and
Speaker 1: it also was the first coin in US circulation, actual
Speaker 1: official US coin where it did not feature the person
Speaker 1: on the coin depicted in profile. Right, So there you go.
Speaker 1: That's your trivia, all right. There's no weird conspiracy thing
Speaker 1: behind any of it. It's just, you know, just like
Speaker 1: anything in the government, tends to have a pretty mundane
Speaker 1: explanation at the end of it. But let's get on
Speaker 1: to paper money. Yeah, while the while the Mint works
Speaker 1: on the coins, we've got a lot of people working
Speaker 1: on paper money, including the Federal Reserve Board, UM, the
Speaker 1: Bureau of Engraving and Printing, and the U. S. Secret
Speaker 1: Service are all working on the tech of paper money.
Speaker 1: And uh, you know, paper money, you would figure has
Speaker 1: a quite a bit of security risk involved, because I mean,
Speaker 1: shouldn't you be able to throw a whole bunch of
Speaker 1: dollar bills on a photo copying machine and have ability
Speaker 1: to print as many copies as you want. Well, it
Speaker 1: doesn't quite work that way, but paper money is a
Speaker 1: lot easier to copy, I would assume than a coin
Speaker 1: which you would actually have to mint, right. Um. Yeah,
Speaker 1: on the face of it, it is much simpler to
Speaker 1: make the copy. Uh, I can't make heads their tails
Speaker 1: of it, right. So in order to make it more difficult,
Speaker 1: you have to come up with various various schemes to
Speaker 1: create a secure paper money currency. And so that in
Speaker 1: the United States, they've used lots and lots of different techniques. Um.
Speaker 1: For one, printed on special paper. Yes, that's one of
Speaker 1: those things that you would say is very non technical,
Speaker 1: but I would I would beg to differ because they're
Speaker 1: the paper is a certain composition, it's got to have
Speaker 1: certain types of red and blue threads that go through
Speaker 1: it now, um, And it comes from from a supplier,
Speaker 1: a particular supplier who's been doing it for a very
Speaker 1: very long time. And it's got a little bit of
Speaker 1: linen in it too. Yeah, it's made from cotton linen,
Speaker 1: not wood. Yeah, so it's it's got it's got a
Speaker 1: very particular feel. And if you pick up a counterfeit dollar,
Speaker 1: there's a good chance that if it's not made on
Speaker 1: the same sort of stuff, you would tell almost immediately like, well,
Speaker 1: this is the wrong weight and texture for a dollar.
Speaker 1: This this doesn't feel right. Um. So there's one thing.
Speaker 1: You've got your your base material, which is a little, uh,
Speaker 1: is a little different. You've then got the various dyes
Speaker 1: of ink where it's in the old dollars it was
Speaker 1: you know, like this greenish ink where that was kind
Speaker 1: of hard to to replicate. It's even more difficult now
Speaker 1: because now they use inks that are have sort of
Speaker 1: a photoreactive almost a photoreactive kind of element to them,
Speaker 1: and that if you tilt the dollar bill a certain way,
Speaker 1: the color changes. Um. It's because the special inks that
Speaker 1: they're using. Again, it's hard to replicate that. So it's
Speaker 1: a it's an anti counterfeiting measure. Um. And I'm talking
Speaker 1: specifically about the inks that are used to print like
Speaker 1: the dollar amount, as opposed to the color of the
Speaker 1: paper itself. The US government will tell you that basing
Speaker 1: a decision on whether a bill is counterfeit or not
Speaker 1: based solely upon the color of the bill is a
Speaker 1: bad idea, Yes, because that can that can at least
Speaker 1: be simulated somewhat easily. Um. But another very simple way,
Speaker 1: really a very elegant way that the money is going
Speaker 1: an anti counterfeit measure on it is that it uses
Speaker 1: lots of really tiny writing, Yes, it does, microprinting, microprinting
Speaker 1: and tiny line patterns throughout the bill, which are very
Speaker 1: difficult to get a high resolution picture of, you know,
Speaker 1: most especially early earlier in the days of printing money,
Speaker 1: it was very hard to get a an accurate um
Speaker 1: simulation of those. You pretty much would need to get
Speaker 1: hold of the original plates um because those those it's
Speaker 1: so tiny that it was very difficult to make a simulation. Yeah. Yeah, Well,
Speaker 1: the the the circular lines around the portrait sort of
Speaker 1: create this you know more effect where if you tried
Speaker 1: to stick it on a photo copy or machine um
Speaker 1: that it would give you a very blurry appearance. Because
Speaker 1: I mean, that's the whole point of the microprinting and
Speaker 1: the lines, is that if you try to use modern
Speaker 1: technology like a simple way like that without trying to
Speaker 1: make plates yourself, and you're just trying to to scan
Speaker 1: a copy on your computer scanner or using a photocopier,
Speaker 1: it's just it's gonna be so blurry that it's become
Speaker 1: will become obvious to somebody you try to pass that
Speaker 1: bill too, that it's not real, right, So let's talk
Speaker 1: a little bit briefly, and then I think we'll finish
Speaker 1: up with kind of some of the new designs that
Speaker 1: are gonna be on the hundred dollar bill that shot
Speaker 1: up in. Let's talk a little bit about what they're
Speaker 1: actually doing to make this money. Um, they're using the
Speaker 1: intaglio printing method. Intaglio, I listened to the g always
Speaker 1: fools me. Yeah, Well maybe in Italy it's pronounced that way,
Speaker 1: but darn it here in the South we're calling it
Speaker 1: on taglio. Um. Anyway, the you have an engraver, just
Speaker 1: like the coins, who creates a an original steel plate
Speaker 1: and it's gonna have very very fine detail on it.
Speaker 1: And then you have a You put the plates into
Speaker 1: the printing press. You coat the plates with the correct ink.
Speaker 1: You then wipe the excess inc off the plates so
Speaker 1: that the only inc still on the plates is collected
Speaker 1: in the little grooves. Yes, and then you run the
Speaker 1: paper through the printing press and the press goes up
Speaker 1: and down, pressing against the paper and very very rapidly,
Speaker 1: and it actually creates little raised elements on the bill,
Speaker 1: because that's what gets get pushed up into the grooves
Speaker 1: and then coated with the ink. Right, it's fifteen thousand
Speaker 1: pounds per square inch um. It is going to be
Speaker 1: embossing that paper again. And this is another thing that
Speaker 1: helps you detect if it's a counterfeit bill. You run
Speaker 1: your finger across the bill and if you don't feel
Speaker 1: that texture, that that difference, and I mean it's it's
Speaker 1: a tiny, tiny difference in height, but we can feel that.
Speaker 1: If it feels perfectly smooth, then you're thinking something's a
Speaker 1: little hinky here. That's a technical term. That's right. And also,
Speaker 1: not everything is printed on the bill when it runs
Speaker 1: through that first um, that first printing run of and
Speaker 1: and they have to print one side and then let
Speaker 1: and then print the other side. You can't print both
Speaker 1: at the same time. But like the Treasury Seal, the
Speaker 1: Federal Reserve Seal, and the serial numbers are not printed
Speaker 1: during this process. That's right, which makes sense because I mean,
Speaker 1: you couldn't put the serial number on the smaster steel
Speaker 1: plate because they would all have the same serial number,
Speaker 1: thus negating the whole purpose of it in the first place. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's also another sign. If you have a bunch of
Speaker 1: bills that all have the same serial number, Chances are
Speaker 1: those might be hinky. So yeah, you have to run
Speaker 1: them through printing at least three times, once for the front,
Speaker 1: once for the back, and then again to the extra
Speaker 1: stuff added um, and depending upon the complexity of the bill,
Speaker 1: it may be another printing run. Because you're talking about
Speaker 1: using different dyes. You're using the special photo of reflective
Speaker 1: diyes that kind of stuff or dies that show up
Speaker 1: when you put them under an ultraviolet light, that kind
Speaker 1: of thing. So let's talk. I'm sorry, I was gonna
Speaker 1: say that. The way they do the the ink, now
Speaker 1: it's got metallic flakes in it appear because of the
Speaker 1: light diffraction and changing the wavelength depending on the metallic
Speaker 1: flakes position, it makes it appear green at some angles
Speaker 1: and black at others, which is an effect very hard
Speaker 1: to duplicate unless you have the exclusive inc used by
Speaker 1: the Bureau of Engraving and Printing, Right. Yeah, kind of
Speaker 1: hard to get your hands on. As it turns out,
Speaker 1: it's kind of the whole idea behind it. So uh. Now,
Speaker 1: in two thousand three, that's when the United States government
Speaker 1: started to redesign currency, and the first bill was the
Speaker 1: twenty dollar bill. To get the new redesign, and that's
Speaker 1: when we started seeing some of these these elements, these
Speaker 1: more advanced anti counterfeiting measures added in where you know,
Speaker 1: that's where everyone's like, hey, this bill looks weird because
Speaker 1: now there's this kind of peach coloration and the dye
Speaker 1: doesn't look exactly the same. Well, that was all to
Speaker 1: kind of help with the whole anti counterfeiting movement that
Speaker 1: that new bill launched on October nine, two thousand and three,
Speaker 1: and also had another secure d feature in it. What's
Speaker 1: if I'm not mistaken, that was the first one to
Speaker 1: have the ribbon yes, yes, where it has the security thread.
Speaker 1: He has the security thread, which and again, if the
Speaker 1: security threat is not in the bill, then that's the
Speaker 1: science of counterfeit um. And I remember people doing that specifically,
Speaker 1: uh snipping. It's like, look, it's got a security threat
Speaker 1: and they snip, you know, just the end of the
Speaker 1: bill and they pull it out to show that it
Speaker 1: was intact and like, yeah, but now no, it's no
Speaker 1: longer security threat. You're gonna have to spend that someplace
Speaker 1: where people aren't paying attention, because people do pay attention.
Speaker 1: That's the whole point. Yeah, the That's one of the
Speaker 1: advantages of having paper currency is that if you want
Speaker 1: to redesign your currency, you know, you don't have to
Speaker 1: wait forever for the old currency to wear out. It's
Speaker 1: going to do that on its own, just through use,
Speaker 1: just being handled. So eventually the older bills, which you
Speaker 1: know are still legal tender, will be so warned that
Speaker 1: they'll just get cycled out of currency. And banks will
Speaker 1: do it too. I mean, like you actually exchange the
Speaker 1: old bills for new ones and you destroy the old ones. Yes,
Speaker 1: and you can buy a bag of shredded money from
Speaker 1: the government. Yeah, they'll be happy to sell it to
Speaker 1: you for actual money. Yes. Um, yeah, I'm not confetti
Speaker 1: for my party. Uh. And the new hundred dollar bill
Speaker 1: is going to have some pretty cool stuff in it too.
Speaker 1: It's got you know, you've got like the watermark, you've
Speaker 1: got the special die, you have a three D ribbon
Speaker 1: in there. Yeah. The new bill is going into circulation
Speaker 1: in February of next year, which for us now at
Speaker 1: the moment when you're recording it, it's and it's uh
Speaker 1: eleven is when it comes out. We're recording just in
Speaker 1: case not able to follow. Mr Pullet syn text. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm not able to follow it. I'm trying to wean
Speaker 1: myself from coffee. Um. So, yes, that has got a
Speaker 1: brand new security threat which is a lot more obvious
Speaker 1: than the old one, and you can you can learn
Speaker 1: more about this at new money dot gov, but we
Speaker 1: can go through some of the details. You can see
Speaker 1: on it. It has some liberty bells and uh and
Speaker 1: the hun read as the denomination of the bill on there,
Speaker 1: and when you tilt it, they seem to move around.
Speaker 1: They're using kind of this weird little holographic kind of
Speaker 1: effect and you might be wondering how they do this,
Speaker 1: so we Yeah, as it turns out, the they are
Speaker 1: being fairly secret about a secretive about the whole process,
Speaker 1: I guess mainly because they don't want people making them themselves.
Speaker 1: But at any rate, it's really hard to find out
Speaker 1: exactly the techniques they're using. Now we can, we could
Speaker 1: make some guesses, but we are currently running up to
Speaker 1: almost thirty five minutes in length on this show, so
Speaker 1: I'm thinking that we're gonna have to not guess now.
Speaker 1: But yeah. The other the other major news security feature
Speaker 1: is the bell in the inkwell. And there's an inkwell
Speaker 1: and bell liberty bell printed on it, and I think
Speaker 1: it's a liberty bell looked like and um at one angle.
Speaker 1: This is again a trick of light diffraction and one angle,
Speaker 1: they both look copper. But if as you move the
Speaker 1: bill and change the direction um, the bill appears to
Speaker 1: change to a green color. And part of the reason
Speaker 1: they have added these new particularly new security features is
Speaker 1: to also help make these new bills UH detectable if
Speaker 1: you're in a low light situation, which was not always
Speaker 1: the case. It's it's not always easy, like in a
Speaker 1: poorly lit restaurant, to figure out whether you have the
Speaker 1: money without holding the bill up to the light, which
Speaker 1: is not necessarily convenient. So it's hard to tell a
Speaker 1: counterfeit bill when you're taking somebody's money at the at
Speaker 1: the table right, or say at a toll booth where
Speaker 1: it's the middle of the night and someone's going through
Speaker 1: a toll booth and using a large bill and expecting
Speaker 1: lots of change back. Yes, I'm not saying that that's
Speaker 1: a place where people you try and pass off a
Speaker 1: lot of counterfeit money. I'm just saying that's a place
Speaker 1: where people try and pass off a lot of counterfeit money. Okay, Okay,
Speaker 1: I had no idea. Uh well, you know you watch
Speaker 1: enough movies or you have a relative who's in the
Speaker 1: police force. Um, you find these things out. So we're
Speaker 1: gonna wrap this up because we have gone on and
Speaker 1: on and on about this. Like I said, I find
Speaker 1: this this really fascinating, and with the hundred dollar bill
Speaker 1: coming out, that's going to be the most technologically advanced
Speaker 1: dollar that we've ever seen. Um. Also, just in case
Speaker 1: you were wondering, the hundred dollar bill is the highest
Speaker 1: denomination that they currently print now, although they have printed
Speaker 1: higher denominations in the past and those are no longer
Speaker 1: being introduced. Yeah, because we can do electronic transfers now
Speaker 1: so that we don't need those higher denominations the way
Speaker 1: we used to do. You know what the highest was,
Speaker 1: I can't remember grand and I was gonna dan. Do
Speaker 1: you know who was on it? Um? No, Woodrow Wilson
Speaker 1: share some services. You know. I looked that up a
Speaker 1: long time ago, probably like a year, year and a
Speaker 1: half ago, and it was just fascinating, but I didn't
Speaker 1: look it up again for the podcast. So yeah, you
Speaker 1: guys who played bar trivia, if you're ever asked what
Speaker 1: was the highest denomination bill ever printed in the United States.
Speaker 1: It was one hundred thousand dollars and Woodrow Wilson was
Speaker 1: on it. Although somebody didn't try to pass a one
Speaker 1: million dollar bill at a Walmart and I had this
Speaker 1: fucking dude, no real, Okay, next time I'm going to
Speaker 1: target al Right, guys, Well, this wraps up this discussion.
Speaker 1: I hope you enjoyed it. If you have any questions
Speaker 1: or you have a suggestion for a future podcast, you
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