A Trip to the Money Factory

The ugly new $100 bill has a slew of advanced security features to keep people from counterfeiting it. CNET was granted access to the U.S. Bureau of Engraving and Printing, AKA the Money Factory, to see how they're made.

Over a week of rigorous printing goes into every dollar bill, and CNET's Daniel Terdiman got the privilege of seeing (and photographing) the whole process from beginning to tender, starting with large, unprinted sheets of special paper and ending up with stacks upon stacks of cash money. Looking at Terdiman's photos will either give you a fresh perspective on the fundamental emptiness of capitalism or they'll make your eyeballs turn into dollar signs like Scrooge McDuck.

A Trip to the Money Factory

Of course, the process of printing money is entirely dependent on technology. This description of the elaborate three-camera system for separating the circulation-worthy bills from the duds gives some sense of how many tiny mechanical processes go into making our greenbacks:




Check out CNET's full report (and gallery) to get a better sense of just how many machines manhandle your money before it makes its way down to you. [CNET]

Image credit Daniel Terdiman