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The hard and fast life of U.S. currency |
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Then it's inspection time. Using computer technology,
a machine called the Upgraded Offline Currency Inspection System
uses a special camera to actually look through me to make sure my
thread and portrait watermarks are positioned correctly. It then
takes a digital picture of my face and back, which it compares with
a master (or "golden") image. If I pass, I move on. Any
smears, spots or skips and it's off to the shredder.
My birth sheet then moves on to Currency Overprinting
Processing Equipment and Packaging, or COPE-PAK. There, a letterpress applies
my two serial numbers, the black Federal Reserve seal, the Treasury seal and Federal
Reserve ID numbers. It is here that I'm finally cut free from the sheet into a
new bill, stacked and strapped with 3,999 "brothers" of the same denomination
and shrink-wrapped into a "brick." A robotic "palletizer"
in the cash-pack section then organizes my brick into the proper numbering sequence
with three others and shrink-wraps all four bricks together into a "cash-pack."
Forty cash-packs to a pallet (or skid), and we are now ready to be shipped out
to a Federal Reserve deposit vault for future distribution. Live
fast, die young
As every "Ocean's Eleven" fan knows, a
U.S. note weighs approximately one gram, regardless of denomination. One cash-pack
(16,000 notes) weighs approximately 37 pounds; one skid of 40 cash packs (or 640,000
notes) weighs 1,480 pounds. How much money is on each skid?
Here's the breakout by denomination:
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| How much money is on each skid? | |
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| $1 skid | $640,000 |
| $2 skid | $1,280,000 |
| $5 skid | $3.2
million | | $10
skid | $6.4 million |
| $20 skid | $12.8
million | | $50
skid | $32 million |
| $100 skid | $64
million | |
The Federal
Reserve, the nation's central bank that regulates the flow of money and credit
for the U.S. economy, orders all U.S. currency from the BEP. When the nation's
10,000 banks have too much cash on hand, they send their surplus to the Fed for
credit; when they need cash, they buy them back from the Fed. Every bill that
comes through the 12 Federal Reserve Banks and their 25 branch banks in this constant
ebb and flow is checked for fitness. Those that don't make the grade meet a swift
end -- in the shredder. BEP spokeswoman Carol Riggs says the
total Fed currency order for fiscal 2007 is $181.65 billion. That breaks down
into 9.12 billion notes of various denominations, 95 percent of which will enter
service to replace worn-out currency culled by the Fed. BEP produces, on average,
about 38 million notes per day with an average face value total of $755 million.
That's more than $15 million face value per hour. About 45 percent of its annual
production is $1 bills. And little wonder. When it comes to
us bills, the old phrase "live fast, die young" is all too true. In
general, lesser denominations live "faster" -- more transactions, more
countings and harsher treatment (crumpled in pockets, exposed to extreme heat/cold,
run through laundry cycles, immersed in swimming pools, etc.). |
