The $2 Bill WILL be redesigned according to the BEP media contact!

Hey, good news for all of you who collect paper currency and want to see something new in the $2 bill.

I talked to a guy at the Bureau of Engraving & Printing's "general inquires" phone number for a while about asking if the $2 bill would be redesigned for features for the visually impaired, and he just told me "No, the plans are only for the $5 bill and up to be redesigned, because $1 and $2 bills are the two most rare denominations to be counterfeited" and I asked him, "Well, can't the $2 bill be redesigned for features for the visually impaired, even if not for security features? Sometimes it is hard to tell a $1 bill from a $2 bill" and he said, "Well, you should take that up with your Congressmen, and you can write to the Treasury, and Federal Reserve, as they are in charge of what will be ordered" So I said "So, right now there are no plans to even put features for the visually impaired on the $2 bill?" and he said "Yep" He wasn't rude or anything.

But that is not the end of the story.

So, I decided, "Well, just for the heck of it, I will call the media center of the BEP", and the lady I talked to, I asked "Is the $2 bill being redesigned with the next currency redesign with features for the visually impaired?" And she said "Yes it is" and I said, "Really? Because, I just talked to another person from the BEP, and he said that the $2 bill is not being redesigned" and she said "Thats not true. We are redesigning ALL denominations as mandated by law and that includes the $2 bill. The only denomination we are not redesigning, is the $1 bill, because Congress has prohibitted it, and we are not doing anything with the $100 bill for a while, due to the fact that the new colorized $100 bill is not even in circulation yet" and I said, "Yeah, and I know why. Too high of costs to small businesses and the vending industry" and she said "You are correct" and I asked, "Well, what do they plan to do? Put large numerals, more white space, and an enlarged portrait on the $2 bill?" and she said "We don't know yet. We are still in the designing process" and I said, "Well, thank you very much! You made my day. I have wanted the $2 bill to be redesigned for many years. Thats about all I need" So we said our good byes and that was the end of the conversation.

Now I can't help but wonder what the new $2 bill will look like, but I hope it looks very similar to the $5- $100 bills of the next generation of currency, instead of just a few minor changes. Oh, and I believe that the next redesign is coming soon.

Looks like the coming of a redesigned $2 bill explains just "why" the Series 2009 print run of the current style $2 bills to be printed later this year are only going to be such a short run that, the supply will only last until 2014. Because that is probably the year that the next currency redesign will start, if not 2013. Then there might be redesigned Series 2013 or Series 2014 redesigned $2 bills. So I will probably try to save a few new straps and sheets of the current style $2 bill.

 

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Would you knock it off with that, edit

 

Drago, while I don't have much faith in a new $2 like you do, given the scads of detailed threads you write about them here on CT, I agree with you that the response in post number 2 was rude. That poster has a tendency for negative commentary across all sections of CT. I've been asking him for pics of a note in another thread he started and I'm only met with resistence. Seems he knows how to upload images, just not those which show his notes.

Come on Geezer, get with the program and stop being so Geezery on CT. :yes:

 

Yeah, I noticed. Geezer reminds me of a mix between Scrooge and the Grinch.

 

You started out on the other thread by whining that I didn't post under a heading preferred by you. Then you got insulting and demanding. Now you're whining about "resistence" (sic) as if everyone on this forum has to kowtow to your demands.
Strange as it may seem, my world doesn't revolve around your needs and desires and I neither seek, nor do I want, approval from you.
You want to argue - go find someone else, I'm done with you.

 

What you see is merely a request for pics, most people post pics when they share coins/notes on this forum, or when requested. Especially if they started the thread with a "look what I found" sort of topic. My posts aren't demands. I'm glad you're done though because your wantonness to argue is epic on these forums. Again, look in the mirror if you need an example of being an insult, you posted an image of a cracked pot as your only response to the OP...

I know you can post images, so why not share with us the image of the note in the other thread. No one insulted you. You were only asked for a visual reference. Go boo hoo somewhere else if you don't understand this.

You're wrong to think I want to argue just because I asked for pics of the notes you wanted to share. You know how to upload images, try making them one's that don't insult other members.

 

All three of you knock it off!

 

Hey! Do NOT get me into this. I did NOT do a DAMN thing, except crack a "polite" joke. At least "I" did not call anyone, or hint at anyone, that they were crazy!

 

I probably said this before, but they should not change the $2 note. Trust me the government will screw it up royally!!!
With things the way they are now, they'll replace Jefferson Edited ~ political
Anyone ever notice braille buttons on drive through ATM machines? Enough said.

 

They require braille on the non-drive through ATM machines also, so why should they make 2 different panels?

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Of course there are no (not usually / often) braille buttons on drive up ATMs, because the blind don't drive and if they were driving, they'd be breaking the law (not licensed to drive in a visually impaired physical state) as well as would they be endangering theirs and others' lives if they did attempt to drive. However, plenty of walk-up ATMs have braille and loud audio prompts as well to enable visually and hearing impaired people to use these devices. A drive up ATM would be a potentially dangerous place for a blind person to use an ATM should they be injured by a motorist in the process, therefore, no braille on drive-up ATMs.

Braille (for one) should have been added to the design of SBA coin dollars when people balked about the size problem and similarity to a quarter dollar, which the blind would have easily detected in hand had the braille raised dot fonts been added. While it was a great idea for a Braille silver dollar commemorative it was pretty useless to put braille on a collectible object most people will never touch... that's the whole point of braille. One touches it to read it, so it's too little too late to have not used it earlier on coins when problems arose and contributed to the coins disuse and maybe even contributed to the coin program's termination.

There have been investigations into printing notes with braille embedded in the paper fiber, but their longevity of holding up in circulation has supposedly prevented the addition of these features on notes. It seems with the polymer notes including little plastic windows, shapes in the form of numbers or recognizable to the touch contoured forms, they might be added to enable the sight impaired to feel their way around money without a need to resize the dimensions of US currency, change press sizes and paper production.

There are many obstacles of course to redesigning anything, and even more so to get a design of anything to work flawlessly for everyone who uses the said thing, but its far from impossible nor improbable that it will be done eventually. Where there's demand there will be a note to meet that demand. Of course we know there's no demand not threat to the $2 notes security driving a redesign. Budgets are similarly curtailed in government at this time, contributing to delays in currency production of anything lacking necessity.

Assuming a redesign can't or won't be acceptable before something has even been attempted or offered for use is completely defeatist and a narrow view of what any design change ever has or continues to be meant and intended to achieve. There is a gross tendency among collectors to laud the past and shun the present, but every change in the past was similarly due to the demands of the users of that currency in the economy, and the most important, the state of and security of the currency in a given era. Their aesthetics (a purely subjective aspect foisted on objects by discerning collectors and enthusiasts) are and will ever be, secondary to the key functions and features of the currency. It sounds blunt, but it's brutally true. Collectors don't come first in the creation of notes, never have. We can lay preference to anything, but do not fall into the trap of looking at modern currency as failing because it does not appeal to one's own aesthetic interests or preferences. It's not intended to do that, it's intended to be secure, as they are securities after all.

 

I think that as long as they keep Jefferson, and make the design similar to that mock-up I posted here before, it wouldn't be so bad. I just want all bills to be redesigned, and its a pity that the vending industry and small businesses will not let that happen. I don't forsee them changing Jefferson on the $2 note though, so I would not worry about it. Besides, what doesn't the government screw up royally? I will just be glad to see a new design. I would be more worried about them replacing McKinley on the $500 note if they ever reissue it, which is way more likely unfortunately, as is changing the reverse of the $500 note. That oval with the huge numeral 500 in the middle on the back of the $500 note is my favorite design out of all currency obverses and reverses I've even seen, believe it or not, and most currency art lovers would probably find it to be a plain, boring design. On the $2 note though, I would LOVE a return to the Monticello reverse, even though many people disagree with me and like the Signing of the Declaration of Independence design better.

Oh, and this is just a joke I read once, when someone called it an ATM machine, but, do you realize you just called it an Automated Teller Machine machine?

 

Well I'll be Drago, I think I finally found something that I can agree with you on. :thumb: I think it would be pretty cool to put the Monticello back on the $2 note. Everything else that you post about though I don't really see eye-to-eye with too much. While I feel that you want the currency to be changed solely because it means a new design, I am against changing the currency to suit the visually impaired. This is being done for what, an extremely small percentage of the population whose vision is so poor they can't distinguish between a $5 note and a $20 note? For people in that situation they can easily use a hand-held device which tells them what denomination notes they have. The activists who pushed for these currency changes for the visually impaired will never be happy, they are like hard-core environmentalists in that they don't believe in meeting in the middle. The government added a large and purple "5" when they redesigned the $5 note to assist the visually impaired. Activists still complained that it wasn't good enough. No matter what is done they will want more and will find something to complain about. They will never be satisfied.

 

Yeah. I still to this day, do not understand just why, AFTER the Bicentennial, the Ike, the half, and the quarter went back to their normal reverses, yet the $2 note did not. The Series 1995 $2 notes should have been Series 1996 and featured the big head design with the Monticello reverse. And, since they are having this new trend, where they are showing the backs of the buildings they feature, the $2 note should feature the back of the Monticello.

Why, I oughta...NO, just kidding. We are ALL entitled to our own opinion.

Its not totally about the design of the coin or bills I want changed. for the $2 bill and the half dollar, I also want them to circulate, and if redesigning them helps that possiblity, so be it, I will support it. As for $200, $500, and $1,000 bills, I want those bills mainly for conveinience, not just a design chage.

Well, if I may put my foot in my mouth, I must say that THIS is one area where design issues matter to me. If they do ANYTHING that I find rediculous in the next currency redesign, I will be opposed to it, although there would be nothing I could do. Yeah, it should be hard to miss that BIG purple 5 on the current $5 bill, and I wonder how the visually impaired will respond to the huge golden 100 on the new $100 bill if it ever gets released. I think that on the $2 bill and up, all of those denominations should have the low-vision numerals set up the same way on the reverse, as that new golden 100 on the new $100 bill (actually, it should be done on a new $1 bill as well, but I doubt that denomination will ever see a redesign, and I hope the words I heard about redesigning the $2 bill are true)

One thing I have ALWAYS pondered though, was, IF the $2 (and/or $1) bill(s) were redesigned with one of these redesigns, if they would keep on redesigning them each time the $5 and up were redesigned. But remember, if you read older articles on Google, you may stumble across some articles that stated that the government had NO plans to redesign and colorize the big head $5 bill, until they learned of that "bleaching a $5 bill and printing a $100 bill on the paper" issue. So they redesigned the $5 bill with certain changed features so that the $5 bill would be distinguishible from a counterfeit $100 bill made from a bleached $5 bill.

So, if they DO redesign the $2 bill for the next generation of currency designs, I wonder if that means that they will continue to redesign the $2 bill when the next redesign comes, and the next one, and the next one, etc.....

 

This is to the heart of what I was trying to explain in my earlier post above, #13, that design changes only occur for a limited reason. When there is a threat to the security of the denomination of currency.

Even if there were suddenly to exist great enough demand for these small denomination notes, until they start using them widely and running out of what is in vaults now sitting idle and unused, they aren't likely to change the design just because they need to print more of them. Only the signatories name plates will be revised, and a new Series come into existence, unless as I wage, there is a security issue identified and budgets approved to grant work on design and production, to execute and to begin distributing new designs. Look how long it has taken the other big head denominations to evolve, they continue to improve them for security matters, and they still can't get the new $100 out, with constant problems as well as massive public awareness campaigns about currency security and design changes.

The cards are stacked against the humble $2 notes. I don't say this without love and affection for the $2. It has always amused me and been a part of my collection.

 

Redesigning the $1 makes no sense, redesigning the $2 makes even less sense

 

Following that logic you are saying that the greater the denomination of the note the less sense it makes to redesign a note...? This is blatantly incorrect reasoning, because as the denomination increases, the security risk for those securities increases. This is why there are bound to be more resources focused on countering those security threats to the higher denominations of currency. And as I seem to need to repeat ad nauseum to this forum, it is security not aesthetic principles that drive redesign of the currency.

I will add that there will be redesign if/when the FRNs become some other form of notes, like in the past when there were Legal Tenders, Silver Certs, et al. in circulation.

 

i know this is a bit off-topic, but i wanted to jump in here for a quick note. all atm's are to be required to have braille and handicap-accessible menus, something like mid-march of this year. this includes drive-up atm locations as well. when my bank learned of this new requirement, we also asked, "why require braille at drive-ups?" the answer is pretty simple, actually. blind people can sit in the back seat.

back on topic. i finally added some $2 bills to my paper collection today. i now have a few 1976 series, as well as a couple from 1963 and one from 1928. i think a new design is a good idea, considering the bicentennial back is past its 35th birthday.