Series: General Concepts

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Printing Dough Terms of Use:

Today about 20 billion coins a year are made at the U.S. Mint in Denver and Philadelphia. All coins are marked with a letter designating where they were made.

If you have a quarter handy, look at the tiny letter next to George Washington’s ponytail. If the quarter is new, you will see a P or D, which means the coin was made in Philadelphia or Denver. If it’s an old coin, you may see an O or S, meaning New Orleans or San Francisco, cities where coins used to be made.

Our government no longer uses silver or gold in coins but nickel and copper alloys. These metals are melted and poured into ingots or bars. Then machines roll the ingots into sheets.

All coins start as blanks (round disks), which are punched out of these metal sheets. The blanks are then heated, washed and dried. Blanks roll through something called an upsetting mill which raises a rim around the edge of each blank. Next comes adding the design and lettering, called "striking." Once "struck", inspectors check to make sure the coins are ready to be counted, bagged and ready for circulation.

Coins remain in circulation for about 30 years before they need to be replaced due to wear. Compare that to some bills that last less than 2 years!

In 1979, the mints began to make Susan B. Anthony dollar coins, but few people liked to use them so our government was stuck with a surplus supply. Fortunately, by 2000, the government's extra supply of Susan B. Anthony's had dwindled.

In January 2000, the government replaced the Susan B. Anthony dollar coin with the Golden Dollar coin, as required by the U.S. $1 Coin Act of 1997.

The dollar coin bears the image of Sacagawea, the Shoshone woman who served as a guide for the Lewis and Clark expedition in 1804-1806. In 2002, the government decided to halt production temporarily when supply of these coins exceeded the demand anticipated for the next four years.

You can feel ridges on the edges of dimes, quarters, half-dollars and Susan B. dollars. The ridges were put there to solve an old problem. When coins were made of precious metals, like gold and silver, people used to shave the edges and sell the shavings. So the U.S. Treasury added ridges, called “reeded” edges.

All coins have two phrases on them. The first is "E Pluribus Unum" which is Latin for "one out of many." It is our motto and means "one country out of many states."

The other phrase is "In God We Trust." This motto was placed on U.S. coins mainly because of the increased religious sentiment that existed during the Civil War.

Anyone who has his or her picture on a coin or bill must be dead. This is because English kings used to put their pictures on coins as a sign of power. Americans didn’t like that idea so we passed a law in 1866 that only dead people can appear on U.S. money.

Series: General Concepts

Page 2 of 2

Printing Dough Terms of Use:

In January 1999, the U.S. Mint introduced its “50 States Quarters” program by circulating new quarters representing the unique history and traditions of each state. The program honors five states each year until a new quarter has been introduced for each state by the end of 2008.

Now let's consider paper money. All bills are printed at the Bureau of Engraving and Printing in Washington, D.C. and Fort Worth, Texas in denominations of $1, $5, $10, $20, $50 and $100.

Government presses print at very high speeds: 8,000 sheets per hour with 30 bills on every sheet. In a given day, 37 million notes are made with a face value of approximately $696 million.

The Bureau's only customer is the Federal Reserve Banks, who store and distribute the cash in offices located all over the country.

Paper money is not made of paper, but a cloth that is 75% linen and 25% cotton. There is a law that no one can make that blend of cloth without the permission of the U.S. government.

One-dollar bills are used so frequently that they only last about 17 months, but $50 bills can last an average of nine years. The average life of a $20 bill is two years. $2 bills were printed up until 1996, and the government may begin printing them again.

Our government used to print $500, $1,000, $5,000 and $10,000 bills but stopped because of a lack of demand due to the use of credit cards and checks.

Why are bills printed in green ink? No one knows for sure, although some people say it’s because there was a big supply of green ink on hand in the 1920s, so green became the only color. Other people say it’s because green is a good, stable color and hard to counterfeit.

$20 bills are now being printed in shades of green, peach and blue, so green is no longer the only color. The government will be redesigning the $100 bill, as well, since it is the most commonly counterfeited note outside the U.S., and plans for a new $50 bill will follow.

It is unclear whether the government will make further changes to $5 and $10 bills, but the $1 bill will remain the same since counterfeiters usually don’t bother with small denominations like the $1 or $2 bill.

For more information on the U.S. Mint, click here. To learn more about the U.S. Bureau of Engraving and Printing, click here. You can even schedule a tour of the Mint or Bureau and watch money being made.

See what you learned.

Check out "Counterfeit Money is Funny Money"