WASHINGTON — Over at the Treasury Department, it’s all about the Benjamins.

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke unveiled the new design for the $100 bills that feature Benjamin Franklin’s mug. The new bills include additional security features designed to weed out counterfeit notes.

The new design includes a 3-D security ribbon that contains images of bells and 100s that move and change from one to the other as handlers tilt the note. A new image of the Liberty Bell in the inkwell changes color from copper to green when the bill is tilted.

It also features phrases from the Declaration of Independence and the quill used by the Founding Fathers to sign the document on the right hand side of the front of the bill. On the back, there’s a new image of the back of Independence Hall. Both that image and Franklin’s portrait have been enlarged, and designers dropped the oval around both images.

The new design follows more than a decade of research and development by folks at the Treasury Department, the Bureau of Engraving and Printing and the U.S. Secret Service. Less than a hundredth of 1 percent of all U.S. currency is counterfeit, but the $100 note is the most widely circulated and most frequently counterfeited outside the U.S., the Treasury said.

The Treasury will start issuing the bills Feb. 10, 2011. The older bills will still work and will eventually be cycled out of the market, Bernanke said. The new bills will also feature the signature of U.S. Treasurer Rosie Rios.
 


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